RE: You Could be the Reason
by Dragonchild
Summary: Rewrite of You Could be the Reason. Sora has lost his two best friends in the world, so he takes up a summer job to pass the time. What happens when he starts to fall for his new employer. CxS, RxS, RxK,
1. Chapter 1

RE: You Could be the Reason

Chapter One

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Disclaimer: I do not own any of the rights towards Kingdom Hearts or any of it's characters. The Plot is mine though.

Author Notes: If anyone is familiar with You Could be the Reason then welcome back. This is not a sequel but a rewrite. It's the same story only I've changed a lot of things, added new scenes and fixed some character flaws and hopefully a lot of the spelling/grammar stuff. Not that this one is going to be perfect either. To anyone new; welcome to the first chapter of You Could be the Reason. The old story I'll leave up as is, in it's entirely flawed manner.

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Perhaps you've been there, or maybe that's where you are right now. If you haven't this is not the tale for you. The place I'm talking about right now, actually isn't a physical place, not somewhere you can jet off to for an extended vacation or anything like that. It something that you can experience only once. If you haven't figured it out yet, I'm talking about a period of time. Part of growing up that everyone has to go through. I think Peter Pan had the right idea, to never grow up. Life was great as a kid. Too bad magic isn't real, and too bad never never land doesn't actually exist. Remember what your parents always said "Oh it's just a phase, you'll grow out of it." Well you do, thank goodness. But it leaves scars behind, things that you'll never forget, things you'll wish you never did, things you'll regret more then anything. After all nobody ever said being a teenager was ever going to be easy

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In one hot little classroom a group of students sat, each with their head down and their pencils moving, scratching furiously across the paper. It was that time of year again, exam time. One of the last sets before summer vacation. It was a time where everyone felt the stress, if you didn't pass you'd have to take summer school, and there goes the whole excuse to look forward to the holiday off. Sora had never had a problem with that particular threat. He had known someone who had taken it though, it was apparently hot, uncomfortable, and very very boring. Riku had flunked out of that too, it was the reason he had been held back a year. Not that it mattered now, at least not to Sora, who had much better things to do; like finish this last question. He was tempted to just take a random guess at the answer and be done with it. If it had been algebra he probably would have. More then likely he would have got it wrong anyway. The test lucked out though, it was Trigonometry. He didn't mind trig, and it didn't take him long to arrive at an answer. That task completed he flipped his test over and resolved himself to wait out the remaining time before they were to be released for the rest of the afternoon.

It wasn't uncommon for Sora to finish things like this up quickly, he had found himself with a lot of spare time over the last couple of months. Most of that he had dedicated to studying. About five months ago, Kairi and Riku had declared themselves a couple. For some reason this had been their key to popularity. Naturally there was no room for Sora there. He had never been hard off for friends, never in his entire life, this was just the first time he had felt abandoned by any of his friends. At first he thought that he had done something to warrant their disinterest. Though after neither of them would answer his calls, acknowledge him in the hallways, or answer any of his questions, he figured that he couldn't be the reason for the sudden separation. How he had arrived at this piece of logic he still wasn't sure. He had given up, let them go live their popular perfect couple lives and Sora would go on and continue being Sora.

He still had Tidus and Wakka by his side, sometimes Mickey, Donald, and Goofy would stop by from the nearby island for a visit. Not to mention all the people he knew in school. The friendly faces who would smile at him as he passed by, the waves, the head nods, all of the subtle reactions of 'hey it's Sora what a great kid'. But none of it meant as much as the time he had spent at Rikus house playing video games, or sitting in Kairis kitchen watching her mom bake cookies.

Though Sora knew at least one person fairly well from just about every clique in the school, hell on the entire chain of islands that made up Destiny Islands. Riku and Kairi had to go off and find the only one that didn't like him. He sighed and scowled at the back of his test paper. He wished that the last question had been algebra now. He'd probably still be trying to work out the answer instead of sitting here letting his mind wander to places he'd rather keep it out of. He risked a look to his left knowing that it would probably hurt, but he did it anyway. Kairi sat only a few seats away, head down brow furrowed in concentration. Just as he thought, that pain the not really real, but still hurt anyway kind of pain lapsed through his gut. His stomach quickly twisted itself up into knots. He hadn't noticed how much her hair had grown these last few months. She looked like a different person, a lot more grown up now. He turned his head away, he couldn't look any more. What was worse he knew one row up and a few to his right would be Riku. That would be too much for him to bear wouldn't it? There was no way he could look. Yet he couldn't help it, as much as he fought to keep his eyes firmly set on the back of his paper, the smooth blank page couldn't keep his attention. His eyes started to draw up and he forced them back down again. No he wouldn't, he couldn't do it, he'd look at the fake wood grain of the desk instead. Concentrate on that Sora, he commanded himself. It didn't work. Riku was hunched over his paper, his eraser was held tightly in his left hand, he had always had a problem with tests. From this angle Sora could see the curve of his cheek and his dark lashes as he surely was scowling at the page.

The image began to waver and he could no longer see Riku clearly. Tears distorted his vision, the pain ripped up through his gut and into his chest. This sucked, summer would be here soon and he wouldn't have homework or classes to use as a distraction. He wouldn't be able to deal with this. If just looking at the back of Riku's head was enough to bring him to tears. He fought back a sob, he was not going to break down now.

A gentle hand on his shoulder brought him back to the present. He looked up quickly wiping the tears out of his eyes. His teacher Ms. Holloway was behind him, she looked concerned.

"Are you all right Sora?" She whispered.

He nodded, he didn't trust his voice.

"Are you all finished?"

He nodded again.

"All right then. You can go."

"Thank you." He finally whispered back, finally finding his voice. He handed her his test and grabbed his backpack before leaving the room. He was glad that he was able to leave that behind him.

He stopped by his locker and stashed his things, he wouldn't be needing them, before heading to the empty hallway that held Wakka and Tidus's lockers. He sat on the floor knowing that Wakka wouldn't be long. They'd sit together and wait for Tidus to finish. The two blitz players were pretty easy to predict, he'd been doing it for years by now. He looked at the unfinished mural that was painted on the wall across from where he sat. It was an image of Dorothy, the Cowardly Lion, the Tin Man, and the Scarecrow walking down the yellow brick road on their way to oz. It was mostly finished except that no one had ever thought to finish the lions face. He sat there contemplating the possible reasons why the artist had never finished the mural when Wakka snapped him out of it.

"Hey how'd you get out so early? Ms. Holloway's usually pretty firm when it comes to that hour long time limit hey."

Sora grinned back, feeling much better now that he was in his friends presence. "Just lucky I guess."

"Figures."

Sora watched Wakka stash his things before moving to Tidus's locker, he had cracked the blondes combination early in the year. He pulled out the worn plastic pencil case, Tidus had carried with himself since elementary days. The scratched and graffitied green plastic brought a smile to Sora's face. The three boys had a lot of fond memories of the trouble that thing had brought them in the past. Tidus had always used it as some place to stash his sugar confectionaries. It usually ranged from some of his mothers home baking, to cookies, to muffins, to squares, to manufactured Halloween candy.

"Pretty sad isn't it?" Wakka asked, holding the pencil case in one hand.

"What is?" Sora asked, grabbing the kit from Wakka and helping himself to a brownie.

"Well it's only got one more year to hide stuff away ya?"

Sora snorted. "Yeah right, you think he's going to let it go? Where's he going to hide his candy when he gets a job? What will he use to sneak cookies into lectures if he decides to go to college?"

"You think some college out there is going to want Tidus? That's a good one." Wakka chortled.

"Well I've heard that some community colleges are pretty easy to get into." Sora laughed. "Hey maybe he could get a blitz scholarship since he's got such a thick skull."

Their laughter died down and the two boys sat on the floor in comfortable silence, Wakka looking at the mural across from them, and Sora looking dejectedly at his shoes. A question had been brewing in the back of his mind for a while now. He didn't want to think about it, but still Wakka's answer would be enough for him to ask it.

"Hey Wakka?"

"Hmm?"  
"Are you sad that there's only one year of school left? This time next year we're going to be getting ready to graduate. "

"Hmm..." Wakka sat quiet for a minute. Obviously weighing Sora's words. "Yeah it's kinda scary ain't it."

"You think we'll still be friends after?" Sora still hadn't looked up from his shoes, he had focused even further actually and was staring at a scuff on the right toe.

" 'O course we will." Wakka shook his head as if he couldn't believe Sora would think anything else. "We'll be friends till the end."

"It's just... I've heard a lot of people loose contact with people they went to school with."

Wakka leaned forward and shoved another brownie in Sora's direction. "Something tells me this has something to do with Riku and Kairi."

Sora scowled, ignoring the brownie Wakka was pushing his way. "No! My mom was just saying something the other day about running into an old friend from school, someone she hadn't seen for years."

"It was probably someone who had moved off of the islands." Wakka reasoned. "Think about it Sora, we live in a small community, the only way to loose someone is if they move away."

"What's going to keep you from moving away?" Sora asked finally turning toward Wakka.

"It's lousy blitz anywhere else." He laughed, Sora didn't.

They didn't talk for awhile, Wakka most likely was worrying about Sora, Sora was busy chewing the brownie he had finally accepted.

Tidus was the one who finally broke the silence, shoes slapping against the linoleum floor as he all but ran toward them, and away from the testing centre.

"That's it Ladies and Gentlemen, last time I'll see Math Central for the year. Only one left and we'll be scott free!"

Tidus's cheer brought a smile to Sora's face. "So somehow he managed to survive. I guess I owe you ten munny hey Wakka."

"What?!" Tidus sputtered indignantly. "You guys were betting on me living through the test?"

Wakka's rich laugh filled the hall. "Nah, Sora's just trying to get you, the bets not until the last test. Ya see you've got to live out the whole week of testing."

"Gee thanks guys." Tidus said as he reached down and scooped up the pencil case. "You're not getting anymore of my brownies then. In fact you owe me for the ones you've already had."

"Hey Tidus, if you're going to make us pay up for a couple of brownies, we'll make you own up for the cash you owe us for the last time we went to the movies."

"Hey that was three weeks from my birthday you said that it was on you!" Tidus defended."Yet here we are, nice enough to treat you for your birthday which by the way is in October, and you can't even find it in your heart to share a bit of home baking with us." Wakka shook his head sadly, as if truly disappointed in his friend.

"What it's not like that." Tidus pouted. "You were the ones that started it."

"How? we weren't the ones who said we owed you for a bit of chocolate." Wakka countered.

"No but you were the ones who were making bets behind my back."

"Gee Tidus if we knew you felt that way..." Sora started.

"We'd let you in on the betting pool." Wakka finished for him. The two boys burst out laughing, at their joke.

Tidus didn't think it was so funny.

"Ha ha laugh it up you two we'll just see after the last of the tests are over. I'm going to kick your ass at blitz camp this year Wakka."

Wakka ignored the jab. "Come on lets get out of here before they decide to lock us in ya."

The journey home wasn't anything special that day, they walked along their usual route, Tidus was the first to turn off a different direction for his house. Wakka soon left Sora, turning onto his street. The rest of the walk home was enjoyable. Sora's good mood lingered as he made the last couple of blocks to his house solo. That vanished quickly once he opened the door to his house. "I'm home! Mom?"

There was no answer. Guess she was working tonight. He set his things down on the floor and left his shoes sitting by the front door, instead of setting them in the closet like his mother always insisted. He made a bee line for his room and went and sat on his bed. He had been hoping that his mother would be home tonight. He moved to the window to sulk.

Sora loved that from his bedroom window he could see the ocean, but then there weren't very many windows on Destiny Islands that you couldn't see the ocean. He had spent the last hour or so watching the shadows grow longer. The setting sun couldn't be seen from his room, since his window faced east. Things looked really dreary to the east, after all at this time of day the only real view was toward the west at the setting sun. At least the water comforted him a little twinkling reflections of the sun bouncing off of the waves and giving him a hint every now and then that it wasn't completely dark yet. He had been sitting here at his window since he had got home. He had nearly forgotten that Wakka and Tidus were going to be away for most of the summer. Tidus's little threat had reminded him. Every summer the two went out to a blitz camp on one of the other islands. That meant that Sora would be here alone for the whole summer. There was little to no chance that Kairi or Riku would come around now. He was sure that the two would be very busy with their friends during the holiday. These two months would probably be the longest two months of his life.

Not that Wakka and Tidus hadn't tried. Hell the two of them had been pushing for Sora to sign up for camp with the two of them, until the deadline had come and gone. Sora had been tempted, he probably would have if it wasn't for the fact that he was and will always be abysmal at the sport. Hell the last time he had joined in on a game Selphie had schooled him, and Selphie hated blitzball. Just the thought of Sora being surrounded by pros of the sport was enough to have him running for the hills.

He could take his mothers advice, find a girlfriend. His mother had been pushing him to find a relationship for a long time now. Sora had tried, it just was all the girls he knew were his friends and he had no clue on how to approach a subject like that with any of them. The thought of him walking hand in hand with a girl made his stomach feel queasy.

His mother Ann had always been a little unusual. She was never short of advice for Sora as unusual as some of it sometimes sounded. She had once told him to go get laid, something a mother should never say to her son. Sora was in fact certain that she was convinced that if he were to find himself a girlfriend he'd somehow magically become acceptable to the 'popular' crowd. That was a laugh, after all it was a small island and if none of the girls were interested, why would they suddenly want him now. Besides it's not like suddenly they'd all be friends again Riku, Kairi, and himself. He knew his mother was saddened by their loss almost more then Sora. She had moped and whined about missing having Riku around worse then he did the first couple of months. He was sure his mother pitied him now, he caught her more then once giving him a look out of the corner of his eye. If he had to hear her tell him that he'd "find someone special" as she liked to put it, he'd run screaming from the room.

He sighed and pressed his forehead against the cool glass of the window, if felt soothing. He felt so tired, his eyes burned, his body ached, he really wished that this whole 'friend' thing could be over and done with. He was getting so sick and tired of worrying about running into Riku or Kairi around town so much. He remembered back when he had been so desperate to have the pain end, that he wished that he had never met them. Even though he wouldn't be the same person if he hadn't, he wouldn't have been Sora if he had never been on all those beach side adventures with Riku, he wouldn't be Sora if he had never met Kairi and had her keep his head on straight. As cheesy as it sounded back in the day, they had been the wind beneath his wings. He groaned into the empty room at the corny sentiment. All he wished now was to bury the hatchet and put all of this behind him. A little closure was all he asked for. The other parties didn't seem too interested though.

He still remembered the last time he had tried to say anything to them in the hallway at school. He hadn't even finished saying hi when Riku had breezed past, not even acknowledging Sora standing there. Kairi had looked back and attempted a feeble wave, but thinking back on it. Sora wasn't even sure if it had been directed at him.

Sora scowled at the now dark sky before him as he sat there thinking about past discrepancies. A growl from his stomach let him know how much time had actually passed despite the fact that he had witnessed it for himself. He finally peeled his forehead from the window, rubbing it absently as he headed down the stairs to find himself something to eat. His house always seemed so big and empty when he was here by himself. He hated being alone at home, it gave him to much time to sit and think about things he'd rather just forget. Like the fact that Riku's phone number would probably be permanently etched into his memory. He shook his head to discourage the thought and made himself busy by making a sandwich with the works. It was too quiet so he turned on the tv so he would have something to listen to other then the scrape of the knife against the bread. Now was one of the times he wished his mother didn't have to pull so many late shifts. He had gotten used to her being away from home so often, but since Kairi and Riku had disappeared it seemed like he would have to learn to cope with her being gone all over again. He did his best to understand though, after all he knew it wasn't easy raising a child by yourself. His mother had been a strong person to have made it this far already. Still he knew that if she were home right now she'd be filling the room with talk. Asking him how his test went. How his studying was going for the next one.

He smiled as he finished up his sandwich and set it on a plate to go eat in front of the tv. Having his mother away wasn't always bad. As soon as he was old enough, Ann had let him stay home by himself instead of dragging him half way across the island to a baby-sitter. The freedom had be most enjoyable back then, he liked to be by himself then, since it was so different. It was nice to sleep in his own bed instead of staying in Mrs. McCreadie's spare bed every other night. He could stay up as long as he wanted and do most anything he wanted. He had learned quickly though to be responsible, he had learned to make himself a meal, and to get his homework done, and to get to bed at a decent time. If he ever moved out on his own though, he wouldn't do it alone. It was nice sometimes to know that there was another living breathing soul under the same roof as him.

He did his best to ignore his worries for the moment and went to enjoy his meager dinner on the sofa, changing the channel on the tv as he did so. He settled on a station playing retro cartoons. There wasn't anything old cartoons couldn't distract him from. He settled onto the couch and watched the whole episode of the smurfs, even after he finished his sandwich. He stretched out on the couch feeling a lot better then he had been before he sat down. He deposited his empty plate into the sink and went about his night time routine. He cleaned up the mess he had made with his little meal and double checked the mailbox, he had a nasty habit to forget to check it when he got home. Sure enough he had forgotten again. He grabbed the few pieces of mail in the tin box and locked the door behind him again. He flipped through the mail as he made his way into his mothers study. There was a utility bill, and something concerning his father. He pulled these out from the junk mail and placed them on his mothers desk. The rest he took into the kitchen. Sora weeded out the junk mail before his mother got to it usually. There wasn't anything very interesting in the junk mail today. He threw the rejects directly into the recycling bucket, a envelope that said "True love inside." an ad for the corner grocer, another thing from publishers clearing house. The last item left was a white piece of paper, folded into thirds. He opened it up and glanced over it. It was someone's resume.

This wasn't the first time someone had dropped one off here. His mother was in charge of hiring for the little company she worked for. She never liked it much whenever someone stopped by the house about a job, but it happened, it didn't take much to find out where someone lived on a little island like this. He read it over. Whoever it was they didn't have a lot of experience with computers, none of the jobs listed in their work experience lasted more then a couple of months. He guessed that they were young and had been job hopping. He knew well enough that this person would never warrant an interview with his mother, they didn't even have a cover letter. He took the liberty of throwing the resume into the recycling for his mother. He'd rather not bother her with it.

The resume was enough to get him thinking as he went about the rest of his night time routine. Hadn't he thought about getting a job during the summer? He closed and locked all of the windows on the ground floor. Perhaps tomorrow he'd get his mother to help him put together a resume of his own. He flicked off all the lights except for the one lamp right by the door, in case it was still dark when Ann came home. If he got a job somewhere good he'd probably get a discount. He headed into the bathroom to wash his face and brush his teeth for the night. He might even get free coffee if he worked in a coffee shop. As he changed into a loose pair of sweats to sleep in. 'Hell' he thought as he climbed into his bed, he might even make a new friend.

* * *

It was early in the morning and Sora sat in the schools library for the final time that year. He had agreed to help Tidus out with some last minute studying. Part of him wished that Wakka had agreed to help out as well, but there was still no sign of him, not that Sora was expecting him to show up too early.

"Dude this fucking sucks." Tidus whined from his spot next to Sora. "By the time I'm finished reading everything on the test we're going to be out of time."

"Well how do you expect them to be able to test us on the material then?"

"Don't they have movie versions of everything now?"

"You're hopeless you know that. It's not like you have to read a whole book." Sora pointed out. Tidus had been whining like this all morning.

"Then what the hell am I going to have to read if not a book?" Tidus said as he buried his head in his arms.

"I don't know probably just some short stories, most likely there'll be an excerpt from one of Shakespeare's plays."

Tidus's head whipped up, causing Sora to jump he hadn't be expecting a reaction like that. "What do you mean Shakespeare?! I can't even understand what those guys are saying. Are you even sure that it's written in English? I'm going to fail for sure."

"Would you relax. They're not going to put in anything that we haven't already covered in class. They'll probably pick something easy. Hamlet or something like that, death, destruction, everyone dies. Or maybe Romeo and Juliet. That's as easy as easy gets."

"Romeo and Juliet? We read that right? What was it about again?" Tidus pulled a paper close to himself and Sora could see him scratching out the names of the plays he had just mentioned.

"What do you mean what's it about? Tidus Romeo and Juliet is the most famous love story in the world!" Sora was nearly at his limit, Tidus couldn't be serious.

"Sora... since when did you read love stories?"

"Since they put it on the reading criteria list. You've got to be kidding me with this Tidus. Did you study this stuff at all? Did you pay any attention in class?"

"Well you don't have to get snippy."

Sora was just about to snap. "Tidus I swear..."

"Sorry I'm late." It was Wakka, at last finally. "Whoa, you look fried ya. Go take a break, let me take over."

"Thanks" Sora was grateful, there was only so much of Tidus's bad study habits anyone could take.

Once free from the library Sora took note of the time. Too much time to head to the test, but not enough time to make a stop by the cafeteria. He decided he may as well make the best of the time by getting a head start on cleaning out his locker, since today would be the last day he would need it for the school year. If he got his done he could concentrate on helping Tidus clear out his after the test. Tidus was famous for the pit that his locker was always transformed into by the end of the year. He'd always defend it though, every year the same old saying. "Don't mess with the mess." As disorganized as everything was in there Tidus was always able to find whatever he was looking for.

Sora opened up his locker, it was almost empty already, since it was so warm out he didn't need a jacket and he hadn't bothered with his backpack today. He sorted through the garbage and threw out anything he wouldn't need. Mostly empty wrappers from his previous lunches throughout the year, empty papers and old tests. Once he finished up that he grabbed the only remaining items, his pencils he had brought for the test and his textbooks for the year. He closed the locker up behind him and took the books back to the library where Tidus and Wakka were, he'd be able to drop them off there.

Wakka and Tidus were just finishing packing up their things when Sora dropped off his books and signed off on their condition. No worse then when he had received them, perfect.

"Hey Sora." Tidus greeted as he joined them on their way to the science rooms.

"Don' ya think it's strange that we're gonna write an English test in a science room?" Wakka asked as he walked next to Sora.

"Yeah kinda. How do you think they're going to stop people from looking off one anothers pages? I mean the rooms not exactly set up for test writing."

"Yeah lab benches are going to make this test super easy." Tidus laughed.

"Until you get caught cheating and get an automatic zero ya." Wakka chided.

"Yeah, I forgot about that part." Tidus said.

The room they were scheduled to write their test in was the same room Sora had had science in last year. He lead the way to the room, even though both Tidus and Wakka knew the way just as well. They wished each other luck as the door came into view and entered the room without saying anything else to each other. All three stopped in the doorway though. The room itself answered the question they had all been asking earlier. How to stop teenagers from cheating off one another. The answer, set up horrid blue dividers between each student. Sora was horrified, they couldn't be serious. They wanted them to write their test in a little blue cubicle like that.

His voice was stuck in his throat and he could only nod when the teacher, one he'd seen in the halls but he'd never learned the name off, showed him which would be his dividered cubicle. As Sora sat their waiting for the test to begin he couldn't stop staring at the three blue walls around him. They were so bright and anywhere he looked save for behind him was all he could see. He noticed how they even gave the white paper of his test a blue tinge when the teacher had set one down in front of him. This was going to be the worst test in the history of his high school career.

He flipped the paper over to start his test when the time finally came and he hated that blue reflection. He was hoping that maybe the test could distract him from the walls around him, but it seemed just the opposite. He had a hard time concentrating on the first short story and found his eyes slipping from the words onto the blue tinted background. He'd have to glance up at the dividers every so often, he wasn't even sure why he just couldn't stop himself from looking at them. He kept loosing his place and found himself rereading sentences. The oppressive colour held his attention far to easily. He was just about onto the last reading piece when the teacher spoke up and announced that the first hour was up, and anyone who was finished their test could leave. Sora was horrified yet again, he was always done before the first hour was up. He was suddenly sure that this is what Claustrophobia must feel like. He almost felt that the blue walls were moving in around him.

He was relieved that the final reading piece was from Macbeth. That was easily his favorite of Shakespeare's plays and he allowed himself to skip over reading it. The answers came to him easily enough, which he took as a good sign. He was grateful when the last question was finished with and he could gather up his things and leave the room. He never looked back at the dividers.

He found Wakka outside of Tidus' locker, already open and the clearing process already started. "Hey it's about time you showed up. It's not like you to stay behind in a test ya."

"Yeah, yeah tell me about it. I hated those dividers they were so distracting."

"Oh ya 'cause everyone knows how distracting something immobile can be." Wakka laughed out, as he pulled something from Tidus locker that looked like it was about to sprout legs and run off. Wakka pulled a face as he threw it into the nearest trash can.

"The colour asshole, and they were so close. It felt constricting, like they were going to move in and crush me."

A look of concern crossed Wakkas face briefly but it passed just as quickly as it appeared. "Are you sure you don't like the colour? I was thinking I might take the time to repaint my room that colour ya."

"Ha ha Wakka you're so funny. Absolutely hilarious you know that." Sora grabbed a handful of trash from Tidus's locker. "Did I really take that long? You've just about got this thing cleared out."

"Ya you were gone a while."

"Who woulda thought it. After you get all that crap out of here it kinda looks like a locker." Sora joked. He'd rather have the embarrassing issue of his newfound claustrophobia behind him.

"No kidding really? Hey what did you think of question seventeen? It kinda stumped me for a bit till I went back and re-read the passage. I'm still not sure that I got it right though." Wakka asked casually, sorting through some more of the loose papers on the bottom of the locker.

Sora remembered that one pretty clearly, that was just before he noticed a small hole on the divider to his left, where it looked like someone had tried to dig a hole through with their pen. "That one was easy enough. Twenty three had me for awhile though."

"Hey look who it is." Wakka said pointing down the hallway.

"Heya losers what the hell do you think you're doing to my locker?!" Tidus boomed out when he noticed what they were doing.

"Would you keep your voice down. Believe it or not but there are still people writing tests around here." Sora said, motioning with his hands for Tidus to quiet down.

"Ah they're the ones who are just going to end up failing anyway." Tidus scoffed.

"Don' talk that way 'bout others. You'd be one of 'em if we hadn't been helping you out this morning." Wakka reprimanded.

"Nah that was just a bit of last minute jitters is all." Tidus brushed it off

"You asked me what Romeo and Juliet was about!" Wakka countered.

Sora shook his head and let the two fight it out, they always did stuff like this. He ignored them and concentrated on clearing out Tidus' locker. It was a little sad when he thought about it. Today was the last day he'd have to come here this year. After the summer passed they'd all be in their final year of school. At least the final year they'd all be together. Not that high school was that exciting, he could probably think of more cons then pros. Maybe the worst part of it was thinking that he'd still have to trudge through one more year of the dramas, the cat fights in the hallways, the talking behind everyone else's back, the betrayal, and the heart ache of it all. If that was all true though, why did it hurt to think about it, that the time they had together was numbered. He looked up from his business with the locker at his two friends still bickering. It was because they'd have to be breaking tradition.

And as tradition stated... "Alright you two break it up and help me out."

"Ya cut it out Tidus." Wakka jibbed one last time.

"Hey you guys threw out half my stuff!" Tidus balked.

"Anything with mould on it went." Sora informed.

"Every year you do this!" Tidus continued to mope.

"So you should be used to it by now ya." Wakka said as he pulled Tidus down to the floor to help go through the last of the items left in the locker.

Sora smiled at his two friends, he would miss them this summer.

Tidus complained minimally as they finished up their mission, the only remaining items that hadn't been thrown out or returned to their rightful owners went into a plastic bag that Tidus carried home with him. Wakka grabbed his bag which was the only thing left in his locker and they headed out saying farewell to the school for the summer, and Sora listened to Tidus and Wakka talk excitedly about their plans for the summer

* * *

It had only taken a day, a single day for Ann to polish up Sora's resume. A matter of few hours actually. After he mentioned to her that he was thinking of getting a job for the summer, she had jumped on the chance to get him out of the house and keep him busy. Sora read over the resume just before leaving the house for the day, he was impressed by her skill of making the smallest interest of his into a useful skill. He had printed a few out and kept them in a folder, he had worn his best shorts (it was too hot to consider wearing pants that day) and a clean shirt. Ann had lectured him on the best ways to present himself to make a good impression. Still he felt nervous as he left the bus and found himself in the busiest part of the island. The core the the island was all commercial buildings filled with businesses and shopping centers. It was the best place to go to find a job right away. He looked around him suddenly not sure what exactly he was looking for. He could walk into any of these buildings and apply for a job, the corner coffee shops, the restaurants, the retail stores, the office buildings. He walked down the street until a shop caught his attention. A trendy little clothing shop, he remembered hearing about it from some of the kids at school. He immediately could see himself working there.

He crossed the street and let himself into the shop, a little bell chimed when he opened the door. Not one of those electronic chimes but an actual silver bell that hung there. He immediately had a good feeling about this place. At first he was the only one in the store it was empty, obviously it was slow during the middle of the day during the week. Almost immediately after he noted this someone came out from the back room. Sora's breath caught in his chest when he laid eyes on him.

He was tall, blonde, with a good build, blue eyes just the right shade of baby blue. He was fairly young, older then Sora and probably still in his early twenties. He felt a little guilty that he felt himself attracted to this man, how else would he be able to notice all these details in such a short amount of time. He caught his thoughts there. No he couldn't be attracted to him, not physically like that, he was a guy. He must have been staring for a while longer then he thought because Sora snapped out of his daze when he noticed that the man gave him a strange look. He gave a weak smile in defense and finally managed to choke out a little "Hi."

"Can I help you?" The blonde asked.

"Um, yeah. I was wanting to drop off a resume." Sora wasn't sure why he was bothering to continue. He had already blown it, he had forgotten all the tips his mother had given him. No confidence here, he had forgotten to ask for the manager, he had kept eye contact only because he couldn't seem to look away from those baby blues.

The blonde rose an eyebrow, probably at Sora's poor form. "Sorry I don't think we're hiring right now. I can keep it on file if you want."

Sora nodded dumbly and handed over a copy, he was probably being screened because of his poor actions.

"So your name's Sora then?"

"Yeah how'd you know that?" Sora asked a little shocked.

"Um... because it says it right here." The blonde said pointing to the top of Sora's resume.

Sora laughed nervously at his own stupidity. "Sorry I'm a little nervous." He could use that as an excuse right?

The door chime distracted Sora enough that he was able to finally take his eyes off of the tall blonde. A young girl, probably a year or two older then Sora walked in. She smiled warmly and spoke to the blonde. "Hey Cloud I'm back, you can go for your lunch now."

"Thanks Yuffie." He said as he put Sora's resume in a folder behind the counter.

It was about then that Sora thought that he should probably leave.

"Hey Sora. Want to join me?" He asked suddenly.

Sora turned around stiffly to look at him, just a little shocked. "Um.. Okay?"

"By the way, the names Cloud." Cloud said finally introducing himself.

* * *

Author Notes: Thanks everyone for reading. Drop me a line and let me know what you think. If you've read the old one don't forget to tell me if this was better or not. I'm just really curious. See you all again with the next chapter.


	2. Chapter 2

RE: You Could be the Reason

Chapter Two

* * *

Disclaimer:I don not own any of the rights towards Kingdom Hearts or it's characters. The plot is mine though.

Author Notes: Hello and welcome back to RE: You Could be the Reason. I have to say thanks to everyone who left a review last chapter. Sounds like I'm on the right track. You all motivated me to make time to work on this.

* * *

Okay so I knew it was going to be a one very long, very boring, very lonely summer. I figured hey lets go get a job. It'll pass the time and I'll earn a little bit of money. Mom was on board for sure, hell she was all over it. So she dressed me up and threw me out the door. And I screw it up. Naturally the first place I go to I choke, nerves or something. I meet the manager and can't even remember my name, naturally it's an automatic rejection. So why did he ask me for lunch?

* * *

Sora followed along beside Cloud as he lead him just down the street. A little cafe, restaurant, sorta pub thing. He remembered going past it plenty of times. It had a simple wooden sign attached to the front, it read; The Seventh Heaven. They let themselves in and Cloud went straight for a table at the back, near the kitchen. Sora looked around curiously, he had never been inside before. It was filled with rich colours on the walls and equally rich smells from the kitchen. Atmospheric with low-lighting over every table. Off to one side Sora could see the lounge section. Sora sat across from Cloud at the table still looking around with slight awe, everything from the scuffs in the floor to the knick-knacks on the walls. He liked the place, hopefully it had good food.

"What do you think?" Cloud asked.

Sora looked around once more. "It's really nice, it surprising I've lived on this island my whole life and I've never been here."

"It's surprising how much you can miss when it's under your nose all the time." Cloud said, smiling slightly as a waitress approached them.

Sora nodded his response.

"Hi Cloud. Coffee to start?"

Obviously Cloud was a regular here.

"How about you?" She asked looking at Sora.

"Oh um..." He had been caught off guard. "Just a coke I guess."

"Got it. I'll send Tifa over okay."

Sora didn't really know what that meant, but Cloud seemed to understand just fine, he nodded to the waitress just before she turned to leave them.

"I come here a lot." Cloud said as he flipped a menu open. "I know the owner, she gives me a discount sometimes. She's a good friend."

"Oh I guess that makes sense." Sora said lamely. "My uncle works down at the fish market, sometimes he'll bring a cod home for us."

"Hey can't argue with a free fish."

"Yeah." Sora hid his face behind a menu, he felt like an idiot. The majority of the islands population were fishermen, it was rare for someone not to be related in someway to anyone at the fish market. He needed to sound a little more normal. What did normal sane people talk about? He thought he'd take a stab at it, that being normal thing. "So how's the club sandwich here?"

"Depends if Vinnie's working or not. He makes the best sandwiches."

"Ah..." Sora looked back at the menu. Cloud definitely knew his way around this place if he knew the names of the cooks too.

"Hey Cloud about time you showed your face in here, it's been over a week." A voice suddenly said from behind Sora, he jumped quite violently. He felt a little embarrassed about his reaction, he hadn't been expecting an interruption. He looked over his shoulder at the voice and saw a woman.

Not just any woman either, she was gorgeous. Long black hair, flawless skin, and an incredible body. If this was the owner/friend of Clouds there was no way he wasn't some what involved. He'd have to be crazy to let someone like her go by. She smiled at Sora.

"I heard you had someone with you. He's a cousin or something?" She asked at she made over the top gestures to Sora's unruly hair. Obviously it was something that they had in common.

"This is Sora. Sora this would be Tifa, my friend." Cloud explained, pointing towards Sora. "I just met him."

"Just met him? Geeze Cloud and you're taking him to lunch already, I know I've heard of speed dating before but this is just pushing it." she laughed at her joke. "I didn't know you had it in you to move so fast."

Cloud rolled his eyes. "Ha ha Tifa very funny, just ignore her when she starts talking like that."

"No you can't" Tifa interrupted. "Everything that comes from my mouth is witty and insightful."

Sora laughed uncomfortably, he wasn't sure how to react to the boisterous woman. Their original waitress returned with their drinks and asked them if they were ready to order. Cloud asked for a BLT and returned to his conversation with Tifa.

"How about you sweetie?" The waitress asked Sora.

He hadn't actually been prepared. "Oh um... uh I guess I'll get the club sandwich." It was the first thing he could think of.

She nodded. "Oh did you guys want that on one bill or separate?"

Sora was going to answer separate but Cloud beat him to it. "One's fine."

"No Separate." Sora argued.

"I've got it, I'm not the one out looking for a job." Cloud responded quickly.

"But-"

"Nope no arguments." Cloud said cutting him off before he could get much else out.

"Got it I'll be right back with that." The waitress piped up.

She scooted off back to the kitchen, and Sora had no choice but to try and pretend that he was keeping up with the talk Cloud and Tifa was having. Tifa had made herself more comfortable and was leaning on one of the tables next to them and her arms were crossed loosely across her chest, just under her bust.

The two of them were talking about mutual friends whom naturally Sora had never met, nor heard of before.

"I can't believe Leon finally got the nerve to evict that bum Siefer, he's been threatening to do that for eons now." Tifa said laughing a bit.

"It won't last he'll talk his way back into the apartment soon. Besides Leon can't afford that place by himself for long. A couple of months max."

"It wouldn't take long for him to find someone else to help pay the rent. The island is crawling with people looking for a room." Tifa reasoned. "I think it's about time he stood up to that guy. He's nothing but a bully. Leon's been putting up with him for far too long."

"You don't know him like I do... right Sora?" Cloud said, suddenly pulling Sora into the conversation.

"Um...uh... right, what you said." Sora was caught off guard for probably the millionth time that day, he really didn't like being lead into a conversation like that.

"That doesn't count Cloud he doesn't know what he's talking about."

"Whatever ,you just don't want to admit that I won."

Tifa stood up again, relinquishing the table she had been using as a seat. "Say whatever you need to make yourself feel better. I'd better get back to work, I'll see you later tonight."

Sora watched Tifa leave, her rear end looking as good as her front. "Is she your girlfriend?"

Cloud laughed. "That's a good one Sora. I've known Tifa all my life, she's like a sister to me."

"Oh, that's good. I guess."

"So... Your still in school?" Cloud asked.

Sora sipped at his drink and nodded. "Yep going to be a senior."

"Oh big year. So that makes you what? Sixteen?"

"Seventeen actually, my Mom was kind of reluctant to let me go off to kindergarten. She raised me by herself so she's a little attached."

"She sounds like a real character." Cloud drained his coffee cup and waved the nearest waitress over for a refill. "So are the rest of your friends younger?"

Sora was a little taken aback, that was a strange question. "Well some of them are I guess. My friend Riku's a year older actually, he's the oldest in our class." He sighed a little, hating the idea that he somehow managed to bring up Riku again.

"Something wrong?" Cloud picked up on that really quick.

"No not really, just the usual drama."

"Ew, high school drama that's the worst kind." Cloud stirred some sugar into his coffee. "Let me guess. Bullies? No, friends."

Sora nodded. "How'd you guess?"

"You don't seem like the type to be bullied, which is probably the most common problem. So I figured it must be that whole internal friends bullshit."

"Well there are bullies too, I don't let them bother me much though. The friends thing though... You've got some experience in that field?" Sora thought Cloud seemed to have a good idea of what was going on.

"Ah, somethings never change."

"Fantastic."

That earned Sora a laugh from Cloud. "You'll adjust to it eventually."

Their waitress finally arrived with their food. Placing their dishes in front of them. "Did you need me to get you anything else?"

"Sora looks like he could use another coke." Cloud pointed out, and the waitress nodded and disappeared once more.

"Looks good." Sora said, indeed his sandwich looked very good, smelled good too. He couldn't wait to dig into it. He thought it would be polite to wait until Cloud started in on his meal first though, since this was apparently on his dime.

Cloud paused with his sandwich just in front of his face. "You should eat. You're so small."

"Excuse me for my bad genetics." Sora took that as an open invitation to start in on his meal. "I'll have you know I actually have a very healthy appetite."

"Really? So you're one of those bottomless pit types then."

"That's what everyone says at least."

They continued with small talk as they ate their lunch, Cloud continued to ask Sora small questions about his life. If he had any pets, if he was born on the island, what kind of extracurricular activities he took part in at school. Sora found it rather surprising how well he got along with the virtual stranger. Other then the awkward introduction in the store, Sora thought that he was getting along with the blonde quite well. Sora even helped himself to a few of Clouds fries after he finished off his own. It felt like he had known Cloud for a long time, not less then an hour. That must have been the reason Sora found the courage after they finished eating to ask Cloud a question or two about himself.

"Have you been working at the store for a long time?"

Cloud paused and smiled a little bit. "Six years. Never actually thought I'd be there so long."

"Do you enjoy it?"

"I've got a good team, it makes it bearable I guess. Gotta watch out for some of those psychotic customers though." He laughed a bit.

"So..." Sora thought a bit about what else he could ask. "Have you got a girlfriend?"

Cloud really did burst out laughing this time, Sora felt a little embarrassed. "What's with you and wondering about girlfriends?"

Sora shrugged, wishing he had never asked the question. "You just seem like the type that would have girls throwing themselves at you." He was a good looking guy.

Cloud laughed some more. "That's not really the case. Nah, I actually just broke up with my girl not long ago. Well I guess it'd be a few months now. Things just didn't work out. She's got a good guy now though, I know she's being looked after."

"You still talk?"

Cloud shrugged. "Every now and then. More to her new beau then her mostly."

"Awkward."

"Mmmh? Maybe sometimes." Cloud glanced down at his watch. "Geeze I'm late."

"Oh I've kept you. I'm sorry." Sora apologized quickly.

"No it's not a big deal, Yuffie's gonna tease me is all."

Sora followed Cloud out of the restaurant, Tifa did end up giving Cloud a good deal on the meal, which helped Sora not feel so guilty about accepting the free lunch. Sora found himself following Cloud back to the store, caught up in their talk about school. The little silver bell jingled as they walked in yet again. The girl from before, Yuffie was sitting behind the counter flipping through a magazine and there was one other person looking around. Cloud ran into the back quickly and Sora occupied himself by looking through a rack. He actually found a few shirts that peaked his interest, he figured maybe since he'd thrown today out the window he might at least be able to talk Ann into coming back and getting a shirt for possibly a future interview, giving that he didn't choke in the next place like he did here.

"Hey!"

Sora looked up a little surprised, it had been so quiet a moment ago. Cloud was leaning against the counter.

"Sorry." Sora apologized quickly, not really sure what he was apologizing for.

"You planning on buying something?"

For some reason, Sora felt a sting from the question. It might have been the little giggle that Yuffie added to Clouds question though.

"Sorry... I might talk my Mom into coming back tomorrow for a shirt." God he sounded so pathetic.

Cloud nodded. "Sure."

"Um.. I guess I should get going then... It was nice meeting you." Sora turned to head out the door.

Yuffie suddenly sprang up off of her seat and leaned quite far over the countertop. "Nice meeting you too! Come back soon!"

Sora smiled feeling a little better.

Cloud nodded. "I'll call you."

"You'll call me?" Sora wasn't sure how he'd accomplish that.

"Remember?" Cloud said pulling Sora's resume out, laying out on the counter and tapping it.

"That's twice now." Sora said frowning.

Yuffie was still laughing when he left the store.

Sora walked down the street and looked around. That was pretty much a write off, he may as well head home. He just wanted to waste some time anyway. He could come back down tomorrow with his resume's and possibly a better attitude. He'd lie to his mother though, today went great as far as she was concerned. He would consider lunch an interview, at least that's what he would tell her. He did not forget his own name. God, how did he become such a screw up?

He sat at the bus stop thinking over the story he was going to tell his mother, thinking in the back of his mind that it would be nice if he made enough munny over the summer to get a car. He was always having to arrange times to borrow his mothers, which was a pain. It didn't take long for the bus to arrive and whisk Sora back home.

Back in the store, Yuffie busied herself refolding a already perfect pile of sweaters. Grinning mischievously. "So..." She started.

"What is it." Cloud responded.

"I thought you didn't date younger people." She teased.

"What are you talking about?"

"Come on you two were gone so long, and he is pretty cute!"

"Why does everything have to be a date with you?" Cloud said as he brought up the sales records for the day, recording them and filing it with the rest of the paperwork.

"Aaw come on Cloud it's about time you started getting over Areith, and what better place to start then with a cute brunette."

Cloud rolled his eyes. "He's a guy."

"Has that ever stopped you before?" Yuffie stopped pretending like she was doing any work and instead put her full attention at her mission of bothering her boss.

"One time Yuffie, one time and you'll never let me live it down."

"Well come on when you start fooling around with-"

Quick as lightning Cloud jumped over the counter and crossed the space remaining between them, pressing his hand against her mouth. "I told you never to say that name."

Yuffie pulled Clouds hand off of her face. "Okay right got it. You don't have to threaten me like last time."

"Say it again and I will find an excuse to fire you."

"Right, right I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die." She said drawing an X on her chest with the tip of her finger.

"Have you got around to restocking the front table yet?" Cloud said, changing the subject.

"I'm on it!"

* * *

Sora had success talking Ann into going back to the Midnight Tree for a shirt. After his delicate tale he managed to convince her that a shirt would be a good idea whether he was hired or not. He just hoped that he wouldn't get caught in his lie. She happened to have the day off and agreed to drive to the islands downtown and have a look at the place. There was only one person working, and it wasn't Cloud. She was young with a friendly smile and dark hair that went past her shoulders.

"Hi! Welcome to the Midnight Tree. Were you looking for anything today?" She greeted after the silver bell chimed, when they entered the store.

Automatically Ann warmed up to the woman, she always enjoyed talking with people. "I think Sora has a good idea of what he wants. He... Oh my I love that sweater you're wearing!"

Yep that was his mother for you.

"Really?! I wear it all the time, it's so cozy. I actually worry sometimes that I'll wear it out. I've probably washed it a million times."

Sora lost interest as soon as they moved onto fabric content and durability. He wandered back to the rack of dress shirts and found the shirt that had caught his eye the day before. It was a deep blue button up, collared shirt. He figured his mother would comment about the colour and his eyes, or something she usually did that whenever he wore blue. He looked at the price tag and was suddenly unsure that his mother would agree to get it for him. One hundred and fifty munny, maybe if he promised to pay her back.

"Sora Hun. Found what you were looking for?" His mother asked as she came up behind him.

"Ah!" He jumped, not expecting her to suddenly show up there. "O-oh yeah, I guess but-"

"But?" She said stressing the U.

"Well um... it's a little pricey." He felt uncomfortable discussing this with his mother suddenly, he should have just put it back and found something else.

"Hmm. Let me see." She held her hand out and he handed her the shirt. Her brow wrinkled when she looked at the tag herself. "Well..."

"What if I paid you back with my first pay check." Sora pleaded.

"Spending munny before you even earn it Sora?" She shook her head as if disappointed in her son. "Didn't I teach you better then that? Well try it on and we'll see about it."

Sora suddenly felt like he had made a huge step forward. "Thanks."

"We'll just get Rinoa to let you into a room."

"Who?"

Ann shook her head at her son. "Rinoa, the girl working here." She pointed over her shoulder at the dark brunette ringing through a couple of business women at the counter. She quickly rattled off the return policy, when they asked about it. Sora was a little surprised at how quickly she got through it, every last detail.

She smiled at them when she saw them looking her way. "Did you need help with anything?"

"Could Sora get a fitting room?" Ann asked for him. Sora felt a little embarrassed with his mother acting like he was still a child.

Rinoa smiled again. "Sure I'll unlock on for you right away." She lead them to a row of wooden doors and used a key that was strapped around her wrist to unlock the third door from the right. He felt his mother ushering him into the room and the door was shut tight behind him. For a moment he felt like cattle being lead into a coral. As soon as the door was shut, he could hear his mother chatting with Rinoa again. Horribly enough she was telling stories about when he was a kid.

Sora looked down at the shirt clutched in his hands, he hated having to try things on. It must be a guy thing. None of the girls he knew had problems with this. Maybe it was because it didn't actually belong to him yet, or maybe because he was in a public place. He unbuttoned the shirt and as quick as he could, removed the t-shirt he was wearing and threw on the other one. Even though the door was locked he was still cautious, they had a key after all.

He liked the feel of the shirt on his skin. It was lightweight and felt silky against his shoulders. He waited until he had all the buttons done up before he opened the door so he could pass or fail his mothers inspections. He opened the door and was surprised to see Rinoa standing there smiling. "Oh that looks great!" She burst out enthusiastically. "Looks like you got just the right size too!"

"Um..." Sora started nervously. "Where did my mom go?"

"Oh she wanted to get some pants for you to try on with the shirt." She explained.

Sora groaned. Okay he knew why he didn't like trying things on with his mother around, in particular. She always did this. She would get bored or something when he was changing and she would go around the store and grab things for him to try on. He figured it must drive the sales people crazy. Didn't they have to keep track of how many things he had in a room? Besides she must have secretly wanted a girl because she'd come back with the strangest things. Pink silk tops and coloured shorts, being some of the worst things she had brought back for him. There was no way for him to refuse either, she would pout.

He was a little relieved to see she only had one pair of pants with her. "Oh Sora that looks so good. You look wonderful! Here try this on with it."

He took the pants into the change room and inspected them after he closed the door behind him. They didn't look too bad, just plain black cotton pants. At least they were light enough for the islands warm summer weather.

He emerged from the room with the pants on. They were too long on him and several inches of fabric rested on the store floor. Rinoa leant down and rolled the extra length up for him, as she stood back up she pulled lightly at the back of the pants. Sora was caught off guard, not expecting the girl to suddenly grab at his ass like that. He squawked indignantly and pulled away from her.

"Sora don't be rude." His mother chided.

"But-!" Sora tried to defend.

Rinoa made a little sound in her throat, it sounded contemplative. "Hold on I'm going to grab a smaller size, these will stretch out, that rear end will be sagging before you know it."

She walked out of the changing rooms and left Sora and his mother alone. Ann was all over Sora before he had a chance to prepare himself. She was adjusting the collar of the shirt and pulling the pants up, and was smoothing out wrinkles on his back.

"Mom!" Sora protested.

"Oh why must you be such a pain?"

"Mom that girl, that girl she grabbed my-"

"She was just checking the fit, don't be so cocky." Ann stood back and looked Sora over. "I wonder if a smaller size would be too small though.

Rinoa returned with a second pair of pants. "I have only one left in this size." She announced handing Sora the pants.

Sora turned back to the fitting room, already resigned to his fate. The second pair of pants felt tight, really tight, but they buttoned up fine. He didn't want to come out, really, really didn't want to come out of the room.

"I don't know about these Mom." He could try, but his mother would drag him out of there if she had too.

"Oh bother, Sora it's just the two of us out here, get out."

He sighed, he knew where arguing got him. "Okay fine."

He came out, they agreed with him that they were too small. Four more pairs later, Sora ended up with the blue shirt. They could have saved a lot of time if they had stuck to his plan, go in get the shirt and get out.

They were at the till and Rinoa was typing some things into the computer. "Did you drop off a resume yesterday?"

Oh crap there goes his carefully constructed plan. "...Yes?"

Rinoa nodded and typed a couple more things in. "Okay so you're total is 79 munny."

"Oh!? Was it on sale?" Ann asked, she sounded surprised and honestly so was Sora.

"No, Cloud said to use his discount on whatever Sora got if he came in. 50% not bad hey?" Rinoa explained.

"Really? Wow! Who's Cloud?"

"He's the manager. And according to Yuffie Sora's new beau." Rinoa said laughing a bit.

Sora sputtered indignantly for a moment, where the hell did that come from? "What!?"

He couldn't remember the last time he had been caught so off guard, and it had been happening so often lately.

Ann started laughing, so hard she had to hold her sides, as if it really was something funny. "Sora you never told me about that." Suddenly she turned serious. "I'm your mother Sora I thought that you would be able to trust me with something that important. To go off and get yourself a new boyfriend and all. Not to tell me a word, I'm hurt."

Sora was shocked, downright confounded. He turned defensive. "I only met him yesterday! I barely know the man!" He never liked it when his mother laughed at him, and hated it even more when she teased him. Most mothers would hate the idea of their son actually courting another male.

Rinoa's giggle broke through the rest of the awkward excuses. "I usually take what Yuffie say's with a grain of salt. You should never believe what she says, most of the time she's just trying to stir up trouble. Not to mention she always has her head up in the clouds. The girl has got an imagination that is for sure."

Sora remained quiet until he and his mother had left the store. Ann was the one who was better with dealing with people, it felt to him like whenever he went into that place he always felt awkward and out of sorts. Ann and Rinoa had laughed off the Cloud comment and finished up their pleasantries, and before long Rinoa was wishing them a good day and telling them to come back soon. The two of them, leaving the shop behind, part of Sora hoping it was for good, headed down the sidewalk and deciding to make a day of it stopped in at a local hotspot. The downtown cores only decent coffee house.

Ann stood inside the little coffee house, mulling over the menu. She always took forever to decide what she wanted to drink, claiming that there was simply too much choice when all she wanted was a cup of coffee.

"The Midnight Tree..." She finally said, after standing for five minutes staring at the menu board.

"What?" Sora was confused, he didn't see that on the menu.

"The Midnight Tree, the name of that store. Strange name for a clothing store. Don't you think?" She finally clarified.

"Oh, yeah sure I guess. There are lots of shops with weird names though." Sora defended. This was ridiculous, no wonder it took her forever to make up her mind if that was what she was thinking about. He was starting to feel impatient. "Do you know what you're getting yet?"

"Yeah I think so, lets order." Ann said as she finally walked up to the counter. Until then they had been standing near the doors behind all the other customers.

Standing behind the counter was a young guy, tall built with a mop of orange hair, he looked kinda familiar. The name on the tag on his chest said Kay. Ann gave her drink order while Sora stood there trying to think of where he could possibly know this Kay from, finally Ann turned around smiling at her son.

"Do you know what you want Sora?"

That was when Sora's eyes locked with Kay's, a dirty smile spread across his face, full of malice. Then Sora knew where he knew him from. He was one of Riku and Kairi's new friends. One of the jock bully types. Sora had had a few encounters, brief as they were with the boy. He felt his knees grow weak, this was not what he needed on his summer vacation.

Kay leant forward still smiling sourly. "Come on Sora you're holding up the line." He teased.

Sora immediately recognized the infliction in his voice, the overly polite tone with a hint of malignity hanging in the middle. It was like some sort of oral recipe devised by some ancient bully guild or something. He had heard the subtle threats tossed around in front of teachers and adults several times before. Hardly was it ever directed at himself, only since Riku and Kairi had abandoned him, how could he have not recognized this bully from the get go?

Ann sighed and made an executive decision since it seemed that her son had frozen on the spot. "He'll take a steamed milk with caramel syrup." She knew his weakness for sweet things.

Kay made small talk as he rang up their order, Sora was glad that someone else was making the drinks. "So you always go out shopping with your Mom Sora?" He asked using the same subtle tone, Sora knew he would hear of this again. He was surprised that Kay hadn't used his nick name for all of his victims yet. Wart. "How sweet. It's nice that you like to spend so much time with your mom, deep down you're a momma's boy. Personally I like spending my time with all my friends."

"Oh you know each other?" Ann asked sounding surprised and delighted. "Sora you're so popular, I love running into your friends."

Sora groaned inwardly, what was Ann doing to him!?

Kay's grin grew even wider, he was gathering material to use against him. "Oh we're great friends, arn't we Sora?"

"More like acquaintances really." Sora wanted to leave, he wanted to leave right now!

Ann elbowed him in the side. "Oh don't be so shy Sora."

What could he do to get his mother to clue in that they needed to go now. What could he do to get her to say that they barely spent any time together. He needed her to tell Kay that Sora was normally always at the beach with his friends, somehow managed to talk him into going out for coffee with her. Anything! Kay was even ringing through other customers and still somehow managed to keep tormenting Sora.

Relief!

Their drinks were called down at the other end of the counter. They could grab them and get out of here. Sora just had to hope that Ann didn't have her heart set on sitting at a table. "Well gotta go get our drinks, see you around Kay." Sora said as he grabbed his mothers wrist and dragged her down to go collect their drinks.

Ann seemed happy with her latte in her hand. "Come on lets get a seat."

"Can we get out of here?" He asked just low enough for her to hear him.

She shrugged and followed him out of the coffee house.

"Well that was more then a little rude." Ann said once they were outside again.

"I wanted to leave." Sora defended.

"Why? You knew that boy."

Sora sighed. "Just because I know him doesn't mean it's a good thing."

"What does that even mean. I'll never understand the mind of a teenage boy." She complained as they neared the car.

"He's one of Riku and Kairi's friends." Sora explained.

"Oh."

It was a quiet ride home.

* * *

Sora smiled at his e-mail. Naturally there were e-mails from both Wakka and Tidus. They sent him one every day. It made him feel a little bit better knowing that his friends really did care for him. Part of him was wishing that he had took them up on their earlier offer to join them at blitz camp. Seeing as how it had been a week since he had started up on his job hunt and hadn't heard back from anybody yet. Not a single interview or even the slightest phone call. He had spent most of his time communicating back and forth with Wakka and Tidus. He knew they probably had better things to be doing then writing to him. He liked reading all of their stories. Tidus always could tell a good story, and in his last e-mail had bragged up the giant bruise he had acquired on the small of his back. His dramatic story had at the very least entertained Sora and distracted him for a little while, even if it did remind him why he had turned down their offer. Wakka's e-mails were always worded a little more carefully, he always asked Sora how he was doing, Sora would always answer bored. The two of them were genuinely concerned for their friend, which was why Sora was smiling. He just wished he had some good stories to share with them. He couldn't exactly tell them that yesterday he had spent most of the day laying in the grass in his backyard. Well he probably would anyway, for the lack of something better to say. Perhaps he could embellish it, say he took a nap or something.

He was in the middle of composing an e-mail to Wakka when he heard the phone ring downstairs. He ignored it, knowing that Ann was working from home today, the phone had rang a few times, every last one of them were business related. He jumped with surprise when just a few moments later Ann stuck her head in through the door. "Phones for you."

He felt his heart start to race, but the phone was never for him. Hopefully it was one of the places he had applied at, getting back to him. He silently hoped it was the sporting goods store. He had this inkling idea that it would be great to get some new blitz equipment for Wakka and Tidus at discount prices as a welcome back gift. He paused at his mothers desk, the phone was sitting receiver down. He needed to compose himself, didn't want to sound too excited now.

Only once his heart had slowed to a somewhat normal rate did he pick the phone up. "Hello, Sora speaking."

"Hey Sora its Cloud."

Suddenly his heart started racing again. Why would Cloud call him. He heard himself asking the man just that.

"Cloud? What are you calling me for?" He hoped he didn't sound too crazy, because he sure thought he sounded crazy.

"You dropped off a resume remember?" He could hear the slight chuckled behind Clouds voice.

"I thought you said you weren't hiring." Sora was confused now, what was going on?

"Yeah but that was before Zidane up and quit on me. I was hoping you hadn't found anything yet."

"Well no not yet." Sora confessed.

"Great! Can you start right away?"

"Don't I need to have an interview first?" What the hell he had froze up in front of Cloud, he had thought Cloud had pitied him, he thought Cloud would never hire him.

"Consider lunch your interview. Do you want to work for me or not? Keep in mind it's just a temporary position for the summer though."

Sora was nodding despite the fact that Cloud couldn't see him, he couldn't find his voice quiet yet. He cleared his throat working the lump that had formed their out. "Sure." He finally croaked out.

"Great I'll see you first thing Monday."

Sora put down the phone slowly, he was a little shocked. He had done it, he had really done it. He had finally landed his first job.

* * *

Author Notes: Hey thanks for reading. I had a thought, from now on I'm going to try and add some information down here at the end of every chapter about the original YCbtR. Like stuff that inspired the story or whatever I can think of haha.

When I first started writing YCbtR I had just graduated from High School and the last year and a half of school had been pretty rough. I had a lot of bitter feelings toward some ex-friends, can you tell? haha. Anyway I started it like I start a lot of fics that never grow into fruition, I scribbled a couple of lines in a notebook. Writing was therapeutic to me, even if I wasn't very good at it. Somehow this fic got off the ground and I managed to write more and after two years I finished it. Mostly it survived because of the support of the readers. I do this for you guys.

I also changed a few things most Kay, changed his name from something random to a Disney character. If you weren't able to guess what movie he's from. He was from the Sword in the Stone. Arthur was his page boy.

Anyway leave me a line in a review and let me know if you enjoyed the chapter.


	3. Chapter 3

RE: You Could be the Reason

Chapter Three

* * *

Disclaimer:I don not own any of the rights towards Kingdom Hearts or it's characters. The plot is mine though.

Author Notes: Welcome back everyone. Thanks to everyone who left a review, makes me feel all warm and bubbly inside. Well with no further adu go head and read the new chapter.

* * *

Let me try to explain this to you, it might help me make sense of it. Okay first off I went out looking for a job, simple enough. First place I went to I completely bombed, okay check, got it. Then I get a call and they want to hire me. Just because someone quit apparently. Nothing make sense. Maybe they lectured us too much at school, maybe all of that "practise" all the resumes they make us write, the cover letters, the portfolios, all pointless. If I can go in and forget my own name and still land the job, I must be doing something right. Well then again it's just a job, not a career.

* * *

Monday morning Sora had set his alarm early, had brushed his teeth, gotten dressed, and ate breakfast bleary eyed. Luckily he had managed to wake up a bit more on the bus, the bumpy ride was enough to make sure he didn't fall asleep again, though he wished he could. Cloud had said he wanted him there bright and early so he could do a walkthrough with him before they opened. Seven in the morning early, Cloud had also promised that it wasn't a normal occurrence being there that early. For that Sora was glad to hear, he didn't think he could do early mornings like this throughout his summer break. Even one more hour would have probably saved him a lot. The bus arrived just a bit early so Sora found the store dark and empty, he glanced at his watch. 6:46. Cloud was probably still on his way, so he leaned against the wall and waited. Part of him hoped Cloud wasn't too long, he didn't like the idea of standing here by himself in the early morning hours. He could see a bum asleep on a bench across the street.

Sora stood and waited keeping one eye open for any cars that looked like they might be pulling into the little parking lot, and the other eye on the bum across from him, he couldn't be too careful now. Finally with only three minutes to spare, a rusted out little car pulled into the parking lot. It turned the corner with a little more speed then was probably necessary. Soras heart dropped a little though when he saw a different blonde male step out of the car. He was dressed casually in just jeans and a t-shirt and his chin length hair caught the light from the nearby street light. He was short, standing barely over five feet tall, and looked to be only a little older then Sora. He waved when he spotted Sora waiting by the door.

"Hey you must be Sora."

Sora nodded. "Yes that's right."

He pulled a black bag out of the back seat and flung it over his shoulder and finally walked up to Sora pulling a set of keys out of his pocket as he went. "Nice to meet you, I'm Zidane."

Sora's heart didn't just fall this time, it plummeted, landing somewhere in the vicinity of his stomach. "Zidane?"

Zidane nodded and smiled. "Yep that's right."

This couldn't be right, silently Sora was panicking. Cloud had told him that Zidane had quit, that was why he got the job, because Cloud was short staffed and needed Sora to fill in. Maybe Zidane was here to tell Sora that he had asked for his job back, and that they wouldn't be needing Sora's help after all. In the end Sora really was nothing but a screw up. Maybe Cloud had come to his senses and realized what a mistake it was to hire Sora. Maybe he had begged Zidane to come back. It could have been that Cloud had just forgotten to call Sora back and tell him that his 'services wouldn't be needed' or 'your ass is dumped' or whatever it is they tell people when they don't have a job. Sora felt ill, he must of looked it too because Zidane seemed to notice.

"Hey are you okay?"

"Uh, yeah fine, just fine."

"Are you sure? You look a little green around the gills." Zidane asked again, cocking his head to one side, which reminded Sora distantly of a small animal of some sort.

"No I-I'm fine it's just..." Sora trailed off, not quite sure how he should approach the subject.

"Just what? You've got me hanging here." Zidane said in an almost teasing tone. He unlocked the door and motioned that Sora should enter.

Sora didn't follow, he wanted a clean get away if he had to. He locked his eyes on a crack in the sidewalk at Zidanes feet. "Well it's just that Cloud he ... he told me that you quit."

Sora could hear Zidane sigh. "I can't believe he's doing that shit again!"

His voice was tight with agitation, Sora finally looked up at the blonde. "He told me he wasn't going to do that again. What is he trying to chase me out of here? If he doesn't want me around he should just fire me."

Sora felt a little timid asking his next question. "He said that he hired me because you quit... does that mean I don't get the job?"

"Nah, we usually hire people around the summer time, Christmas too. Need to cover vacation time. Clouds just really bad at making jokes. Come on in." He motioned one more time for Sora to follow him.

Feeling a little better about the situation this time Sora entered, watching as Zidane locked the door again behind him. At least he knew now that he'd be safe from the bum across the street. Zidane showed Sora into the back, flipping lights on as he went, where Sora could keep his things. There was a row of tiny little lockers on one wall, none of them had a lock on it, with the exception of one. Sora felt a little warmth rise up inside when he saw that one was already labelled with his name on the outside.

"You can keep your jacket or shoes or whatever in here." Zidane said motioning toward the locker. "Most of the girls put makeup and shit in theirs, usually though we have food in them." Zidane opened up his own as an example, it was cluttered full of plastic bags and boxes of crackers and soup tins, Sora thought he could see part of a shoe through all of the mess. Sora took off his jacket stowing it in his empty locker along with the modest lunch he had packed.

The rest of the back room was practically decorated. The walls were lined with shelves all filled with clothes neatly folded with all of the price tags hanging out. There was one table and a few chairs sitting around it. In one corner of the table was a pile of magazines, Sora moved closer to see what they were, feeling a little disappointed that they were gossip rags.

"Those would be the girls, they like that crap apparently." Zidane explained, wrinkling his nose as if they smelled.

Zidane led Sora out of the back and onto the sales floor. "This would be the most important part." Zidane said as he pulled out a little boom box from behind the counter and plugged it into the wall. "We're allowed to pick the station. Got a favourite?"

Honestly Sora didn't spend much time with the radio and let Zidane put on whatever he wanted. Sora wasn't really picky when it came to music.

"All right lets get down to business." Zidane went on to explain the finer details about the codes on the price tags and what all of them meant. How everything in the store was sized, from smallest to largest. Basic customer service points, answering questions, starting fitting rooms kind of stuff.

"Make sure." Zidane lectured. "That when you open up a fitting room for a customer that you take the items from them and count them yourself. If you let them go in holding their stuff Quistis tends to freak out a bit. She's all up on that Loss Prevention stuff. Just watch your step around her and you'll be fine."

Sora nodded his understanding, filing away a mental note not to cross this Quistis person. He was also doing his best to listen to everything Zidane was telling him. The last thing he wanted to do was screw up and forget everything he had been told on his first day. Then he noticed something. "Um.." He started tentatively, not sure if it was a stupid question or not.

"You wondering something?" Zidane picked up on Sora's hesitant start.

"Well I just noticed that there isn't any numbers, you know, for the doors."

Zidane looked over his shoulders at the doors as if he had never noticed himself, then shrugged. "I'm not sure myself, it doesn't seem to bother anyone though. I think it's because of Clouds girlfriend or something. She was a strange duck with all sorts of weird ideas."

"Cloud has a girlfriend?" Why oh why Sora wondered, why was he so obsessed with the idea of Clouds relationships.

Again Zidane shrugged. "I think so ... or they might have broke up. I haven't seen her around in a long time. Yuffie's usually the one who keeps track of that kind of stuff. Not that it matters much to guys like you and me hey?"

Sora laughed along with Zidane, feeling more then a little awkward because they were only talking about this because of him.

"Right well." Zidane suddenly said turning back to business.

He lead Sora back up to the cash desk, moving the little boom box off of the counter and onto a little shelf behind, along one wall in the process. "Okay so obviously you know what happens here. I'm not going to be training you on cash, that's Rinoas job. She's got the next few days off so you'll have to wait a bit before you can get trained up in that. Not a big deal though, we've got lots of work for you to do."

Sora nodded following what Zidane was saying easily. He actually felt a little relieved, the idea of having to learn how to work a register on top of everything else was not a comforting idea. He had this distinct feeling that he'd forget everything else Zidane had told him that morning if he tried to cram anything else into his head.

"Your lucky actually since your temp you won't have to do customer service training. What a pain in the ass that is. They just introduced it a year ago, all of us had to go. That's reserved for permanent employees though. I guess they don't want to waste the money getting you all trained up just to loose you." Zidane said with a grin.

"I'm grateful trust me." Sora said smiling back. He was really liking this Zidane guy. Even though he was nervous as hell, he still felt relaxed around the boy. Perhaps he wouldn't screw up too bad today.

"Well anyway until you get trained up with the till at least bring your customers to me. Once they've decided what they want to buy and shit find me or whoever else can do it. Oh right, don't forget to clear out the fitting rooms and make sure the doors are closed all the time. Company standard or whatever says we have to get them cleared out and closed up once a customer is done within a minute. We've got a rolling rack right there buy the rooms." Zidane pointed out the rack, clearly obvious against an empty wall. "If we're busy you can just throw everything on there and we'll take care of it when it slows down again. Doesn't matter how long stuff sits there, just as long as it gets back out at the end of the night."

Sora nodded again. Feeling nervous that Zidane hadn't explained this stuff when they were back at the fitting rooms, and was instead telling him here at the till.

"You look nervous."

"Oh well it's a lot to remember." Sora defended.

"Ah don't worry about it. It sounds like a lot but really once you get into the swing of things this stuff becomes a habit." Suddenly Zidane was laughing softly, like someone had whispered an inappropriate joke in his ear.

Sora was confused had he missed something. "Uh..."

"Sorry." Zidane apologized. "Cloud mentioned that you were a skittish little thing, but I didn't think he was that serious."

"I'm not skittish." Sora felt a little offended.

"Hey it's okay, this is your first job right? Nerves are perfectly acceptable. Just try not to freeze up in front of customers. There are a couple of battle axes that'll eat you alive if you show a bit of weakness in front of them."

"I really hope that's not your idea of comforting me." Sora felt like sulking, surely on some plane Zidane was making fun of him. Tidus would be in heaven right now, he always enjoyed a good laugh on Sora's expense.

"No just a warning. Two old biddies, I'll point them out to you if they come in today. They're always in here to buy shit for their grand-kids or something. And don't worry I'll deal with them." Zidane added after he saw the look of panic cross Sora's face.

Zidane continued pulling things out of his head to teach Sora, often repeating some of them. Sora could feel himself bonding with the male, he would almost call Zidane a friend. Finally when the clock hands ticked over to nine Zidane went and unlocked the door. Sora was feeling a little more confident, seeing as how he hadn't forgotten anything yet. He was looking forward to dealing with his first customer. Obviously seeing as how it was an early Monday morning no one was lined up outside the door to get in, so they waited, and waited ... and waited.

At half past nine Zidane was sitting behind the counter leaning on one arm, and Sora was practising folding shirts.

"So wanna play a game of cards or something?" Zidane said, voice thick with boredom.

"Are... are we allowed to do that?"

"Sure why not as long as there's nothing else to do. We don't have any stock to receive, no cleaning to do since Quistis was the one to close up last night, and there's definitely no customers to help." Zidane was rummaging through a drawer as he explained this and emerged a moment later triumphantly holding a worn deck of cards in his hands. "So you wanna play?"

"Sure I guess. What do you want to play?" Sora said abandoning his overly neat pile of cardigans and went and stood by Zidane watching him shuffle the cards.

"You know how to play poker?" Zidane asked.

"No, you could teach me I guess."

The two settled into a game of shang-hai since Zidane didn't feel up to teaching Sora yet another new thing. Not one customer stepped a foot into the store until quarter past ten. Sora felt extremely lucky, she was very understanding of Sora and smiled at his fumbled attempts at customer service. She even joined in on a few of Zidanes jokes. After she left Zidane explained that she was a regular and often joked around with the staff.

Shortly after business picked up and Sora started to fall into a rhythm. He was feeling confident and had the hang of how the fitting rooms worked, and started to learn were everything was located in the store, particularly after a fussy customer had kept asking him for various sizes. He had just waved a successful customer out of the store after Zidane had rang up his purchase when a couple of familiar faces walked into the store.

Riku, Kairi, and Selphie Timilt walked in. Selphie and Kairi going straight for the nearest rack and Riku following closely behind. Sora felt his heart sink to somewhere around his stomach. This couldn't be, they couldn't come in here. They weren't allowed to shop where he worked. Oh if only it was a perfect world, his plans for avoiding certain people would work. Sora knew that not greeting them, and not welcoming them to the store would go against everything Zidane had told him that morning, it was part of his job to greet customers. He seemed to have froze into place, unable to run, and unable to say anything to them.

Selphie was the first one to notice him standing there. Kairi was busy showing Riku something on the rack. Selphie didn't hesitate to saunter over to Sora with a wicked grin plastered across her face. Sora could still remember how sweet the girl had been when they were all kids, her head always stuck up in the clouds. It all changed after she became an official member of the cheer squad.

"Oh look at who it is. Sora I didn't know you could afford to shop here. I thought mommy kept you on a budget."

She seemed to have gotten Kairi and Rikus attention when she mentioned Soras name. Sora still hadn't said anything. Kairis giggle felt like a knife being plunged into his abdomen. Kairi left her place by the rack and walked towards Sora, probably to join Selphie in her teasing. Riku followed close behind. Sora was surprised when Kairi didn't stop. She kept going moving between Sora and Selphie, passing very closely to Sora. She ignored him completely, Riku on the other hand did not. He stepped up standing just inches from Sora, Sora had to look up at him since he was still slightly taller then Sora. "Stay the hell away from Kairi." Riku snarled out, before following after the redhead.

What the hell, Sora wondered. He hadn't done anything when Kairi walked past. What would make Riku act so protectively over her. Sora opened his mouth to respond, only to find that his voice was unwilling to work. Lucky for him Zidane interceded. "Hey Sora why don't you go for your break I'll take over. Be back in half an hour."

"Thanks" Sora said, his voice finally cooperating with him. He didn't know if Zidane actually planned for him to go for his break now, or if he had somehow picked up on the tense situation. No matter though he was just grateful to get out of there. He peeled into the back, making sure the door was shut firmly behind him.

He collapsed into a folding chair after pulling out his packed lunch from his locker. He hadn't realized he had been so hungry, but he figured if he still had an appetite after that situation it had to be a good sign. His stomach was still working properly and he finished of his sandwich in record time. He slowed down after he pulled out the side salad his mother had insisted he take with him. He speared a few carrots on the end of his fork and couldn't seem to stop his mind from wandering back over the situation he had just escaped from.

Neither Riku nor Kairi ever shopped here when he was friends with them. Had their tastes changed that much in only a few short months, or was it the influence of their new friends. Part of him was angry with them. Angry that they had turned their backs on him. Angry that they found it so easy to completely ignore him, as if they hadn't grown up together. As if they'd never gone through anything together. That storm one summer when the three of them were forced to take shelter in the old tree house. That time in second grade when Sora had tripped running after a ball in gym class and broke his arm. Riku had spent nearly all of his free time with Sora at home when his mother had been unable to help him. He wiped a few angry tears from the corner of his eyes. He would never have done that to Riku had their places been switched. Not that it would ever happen.

Riku was everything Sora wasn't. He was tall, attractive, athletic, completely unique. No one had hair like Riku. No one had eyes like Riku. Riku stood out in a crowd when Sora bled so easily into the background, the only thing noteworthy about Sora was his completely unruly hair. He couldn't even hold a candle to Kairi. Kairi was cute, funny, and always fit in. She had always been able to fit into any crowd, she was the one with connections to the popular group Selphie and Kairi had always been good friends. Even though Selphie often complained when Kairi would rather go play in the mud with Riku and Sora then join Selphie in one of her girlie games. Sora could only put it up to destiny that someday Riku and Kairi would move on up in the world. He didn't feel so bad if he thought that fate was the one who had separated them so. After all you can't fight destiny right.

Sora sighed heavily, trying to clear his head of negative thoughts, knowing that his break was nearly over. He wanted to seem collected and put together in front of Zidane. He threw the remainder of his salad into his locker, knowing that it would no longer be edible by the time he would be done work. Before he moved out onto the sales floor he risked a glance through the door, opening it only a crack. He felt relieved when he saw that the store was as empty as it had been earlier in the day. Zidane was busy clearing of the rolling rack by the fitting rooms.

Sora went to help him, refolding everything that had been thrown into the plastic bin at one end of the rack. The two worked in silence for a moment but Zidane eventually asked the inevitable question.

"So who were they?"

"Oh, just some old friends from school." Sora said suddenly very interested in the pink lint stuck to a black t-shirt. He busied himself by plucking each piece of individually.

"Really? Just old friends hey... didn't seem like it. You- you don't have a bully problem do you Sora?" Zidane asked hesitantly, handing Sora a lint brush at the same time.

Sora took the brush. "No I don't have a bully problem. There's just ... a bit of a history I guess."

"Ah I follow." Zidane said and left the matter at that.

Sora smiled slightly feeling a little better that Zidane wasn't going to pry. He brushed off the rest of the lint, folded the t-shirt and returned it back to where it belonged.

* * *

Business picked up around noon, Yuffie started at the same time to help out with the lunch time rush. Zidane explained that since they were in a business sector most of their transactions happened during the lunch hour. Sora had been placed resolutely in the fitting rooms. He hadn't minded actually there were only five rooms that could be used, the sixth had a broken door knob and was now used for storage. That could have possibly been the fastest hour in Sora's life, he was so busy making sure everyone in a room had everything they needed that he hadn't noticed the time. Zidane was the one to inform him when it was one and told him to go home.

Sora disappeared into the back and packed up his things. All things considered he didn't think his first day had gone too bad. Sure there had been a few rough spots. Like when he had dropped an entire pile of pants he had just finished folding, or when he had got his tongue tied trying to explain the return policy to a customer. He still felt satisfied as he headed back out with his lunch bag slung over his shoulder.

He paused a little surprised, it was like magic the store was back to being empty. Yuffie noticed the look on his face and laughed a little.

"Amazing isn't it?" She said. "One o'clock rolls around and everyone disappears."

"Wow ... that was fast." Sora agreed.

"It's normal, now we've just got to clean up." Zidane said motioning to the front table that had been destroyed in the hour long rush.

"Are you going home already?" Yuffie asked.

"Um, yeah I was here early." Sora explained.

"Early? Like really early?" She glanced over her shoulder at Zidane. "That means you'll be off before close. I hope I'm not going to be alone this afternoon."

Zidane shrugged from his spot at the front table. "I'm not sure I think Clouds got Garnet coming in at three or some shit like that."

"Thank god, knowing my luck we'd be swamped." Yuffie said with obvious relief.

She grinned at Sora and fished her bag out from behind the counter. She looked like she was going to say something to Sora but Zidane interrupted.

"You know you're supposed to keep that in the back room right." Zidane chided.

"Oh like you never bend the rules. Besides Clouds not here today."

Yuffie pulled out a tube of chap stick and applied it liberally to her lips before placing it back in the bag and depositing it back in behind the counter. Sora like the open act of rebellion, and the fact that Yuffie didn't seem the least bit concerned about it.

"Oh I forgot to tell you." Zidane said waving Sora over to him. "We always have to do a bag check when you leave the store. LP reasons, bit of a pain sometimes. You've just got to open your bag and someone has to check inside it."

"Right." Sora thought it sounded perfectly normal.

All he had with him was his lunch bag and he opened it up. Zidane glanced inside quickly. "All right looks good. Have a good day Sora."

"Yeah you too bye. Bye Yuffie."

He exited the store, hearing goodbye from both employees. He left smiling, he actually felt like he fit in well there. He had barely made it two feet from the door when he heard footsteps pounding from behind him.

He glanced over his shoulder and saw Yuffie running towards him, her arms splayed and the door closing behind her.

"Sora wait!" She cried over-dramatically.

"What is it?"

"It's not big, it's just that well I forgot to welcome you." She said smiling.

"Well I don't know if you noticed or not, but I'm leaving now." Sora said.

"Ooo Sarcasm Cloud'll like that. But no that's not what I meant. I mean welcome to the team."

Before Sora had a chance to react Yuffie had him in a rib cracking hug. "WELCOME!"

Sora rubbed tenderly at his ribs after she had released him. "Um ... wow thanks."

"Well I'd better get back. See you tomorrow Sora!" She waved and ran back into the store.

Sora waved until the door closed behind her. For some reason he felt warm and bubbly inside, it seemed like nothing could keep the smile off of his face. No one other then Tidus and Wakka ever looked forward to seeing him.

He started walking towards the bus stop and felt really warm in his jacket. He stopped to remove the article and decided that since he really had nothing better to do that day he would walk home. It was too nice to rush home just to hide inside. He liked the feel of the sun beating down on him and enjoyed the song birds perched in the trees that he walked past. He was already making plans on what he'd do when he got home. First thing was a big glass of cold water, then he'd check his e-mail, Wakka and Tidus must have responded by now, then maybe he'd sit outside with that new book Ann had picked up for him. He was nearing the school when a familiar voice paged him from across the street.

"Sora!" It was Riku, and Kairi was with him. Sora paused his steps slowing just a fraction. They were across the street, he could pretend that he hadn't heard him. That would be ignoring him, and no matter how bad things got Sora couldn't bring himself to ignore the platinum teen.

He stopped waiting for the two to catch up to him. He scowled as the got closer, he wouldn't ignore them but nobody ever said that he had to be happy talking to them.

"What do you want?" Sora said as soon as they were within hearing distance.

Riku didn't respond until he was standing next to Sora. "Since when did you work at the Midnight Tree?"

"Since I got hired there." Sora said evasively, he didn't want to admit that today was his first day.

"Ooo Sora you're so funny." Kairi said sarcastically.

Sora rolled his eyes, he couldn't believe that he had actually thought Kairi was funny.

"What do you want?" He repeated, then added a bold faced lie. "I have better things to do you know."

"Yeah right." Kairi said scoffingly. "Tidus and Wakka are gone again, or did you find more friends in your back pocket?"

Sora tensed up, he could feel emotions rising up in him. Not the usual confusion or sadness, but angry undiluted fury. He didn't have to take this from them, he had done nothing wrong. He wasn't some lap dog that followed them. He didn't have to take this, he reminded himself again, particularly from Kairi. "Watch it you little bitch!" He snarled out.

Next thing Sora was aware of was the fact that he was laying on the ground, his face blossoming in pain. He lifted a hand and felt his eye where the pain seemed to be centred, he could feel it swelling already. He looked up, hand still on his face. Riku stood over him looking livid, his own hand still clenched into a fist.

"I told you Sora, I warned you. Stay the fuck away from Kairi." Riku said.

Sora remained on the ground, he didn't trust that his legs would hold him up. "You were the ones who came to me."

Riku snorted a response then grabbed Kairi and walked away, leaving him on the ground. Sora took his hand away from his face and watched them leave. Riku had his arm around Kairis waist, Kairi risked a look over her shoulder to Sora. Surprisingly she looked concerned.

He waited until they turned the corner before he slowly got back to his feet. He was grateful that at least no one had been around to see that. Though he was sure the others would hear about it soon enough. He knew that he'd be teased about it for sure from Kay. He could picture it now, "Hey Wart how's the shiner?" He put his hand back to his face. Speaking of shiner, he was sure that there would be liberal bruising soon. Yeah just what he needed for his second day at work.

Thankfully he wasn't far from home and he managed to take a shortcut through a couple of yards, he made it home without any further incident. He slipped into the house through the back door. His luck ran out there, Ann was in the kitchen and saw him come in.

"Sora how was your first day?"

"Fine." He tried to get past keeping his face turned away from her.

"What are you doing? Why are you hiding your face?" Ann grabbed him before he could get past and forced his head around. "What happened!?" She shrieked.

"It's nothing not a big deal." Sora defended.

"Did this happen at work?"

"No."

"Explain." She said as she dragged him into the bathroom.

"It's not a big deal. I just ran into Riku and Kairi."

He felt his mother tense. She knew the situation intimately.

They remained quiet as Ann sat him down on the toilet and cleaned up his face, checking carefully for any cuts. "Stay here." She commanded, and disappeared from the room, returning a moment later with an ice-pack. "Hold this on your eye. And don't worry I've got a way to fix this before you go to work tomorrow."

"Thanks mom." Sora said as she dismissed him from the washroom.

"Keep that ice-pack on young man." She called reminding him as he retreated upstairs.

In his room he turned on his computer with full intentions to check his e-mail and inform Wakka and Tidus of the latest development, both with his job and the Kairi Riku situation. He found himself however flipping through old picture files.

A large chunk of them centred on Riku, Kairi, and himself all growing up on the islands. He progressed through them backwards so that he watched them aging in reverse. Each new folder showed each of them a year or two younger then the previous one. He watched as his own face grew chubbier, Riku's eye's grew more and more innocent, and the smile on Kairis face growing wider and wider. It was startling watching these changes, maybe this whole fiasco had been coming for a long time. He opened up the last folder, these were the oldest ones. All of them had been taken by Ann, eventually scanned to be preserved forever by Sora. These were the ones from before Kairi had come to the islands. He flipped through the pictures, smiling at the fact that some of them even had the two of them, he and Riku, in diapers. He couldn't help himself wondering what things would be like if Kairi had never come to the islands. Surely they would have got into a lot more trouble, without Kairi there to discourage them from their wilder ideas. The more he thought about it the more Sora realized that he wouldn't be the same person he was today without Kairi. He still had a lot of fond memories of growing up with her, even if he did partially blame her for Riku's sudden change of heart. He would have missed her warm laughter following Riku and himself up the beach as the raced to the nearest tree and back. He would have missed her milder suggestions of some of Riku and his wilder ideas.

He closed the pictures suddenly in a worse mood then before. He pushed himself away from the computer and collapsed onto his bed. If Kairi had never come to the island he wouldn't have this black eye now. He tried vainly to reassure himself that he was better off for having Kairi in his life, and deep down he knew that he was right. On the surface however was a different story. He couldn't help but wonder that if Kairi had never come, would he be in her place? Would he be the one in the popular crowd, not that he ever wanted to be included in that. Would he be the one spending every day out with friends, rather then finding a job to distract himself from his own misery. Would he be the one forever at Riku's side, the one who Riku confided everything in, the one Riku would kiss? Wait ... where did that come from?

Sora sat up on his bed, suddenly feeling very tense. He didn't think about Riku like that. He may have had a sort of thing, semi-attraction thing with Cloud, but that was different. He was attracted to Clouds life style, the fact that Cloud was a mature man who had already made his way through this adolescence bullshit. He like the idea of Cloud not Cloud himself. Not that he didn't know that Riku was a good looking guy. He had been reminded about it his entire life, even his own mother would constantly point out what a cute child Riku had been as they grew up together. His heart felt like it was trying to beat out of his chest. He suddenly felt nervous, like he had been caught with something he wasn't allowed. He hadn't done anything though, well nothing but imagine his former best friend kissing him. He shook his head violently, trying to dislodge the idea from his head. No he didn't think about Riku like that, he wasn't jealous of Kairi. All these feelings he'd been having toward Kairi lately they weren't jealousy. He knew this was just wrong, he needed to distract himself, needed to change his line of thought.

Turning back to the computer he quickly opened up his e-mail. A big part of him was disappointed that there wasn't any new e-mails from Wakka or Tidus. That would have been really helpful. Tidus hadn't finished his story about the cute new girl who had kicked his ass the week before in a blitz match. He instead opened up a new composition and started writing a note to Wakka. The one thing he could trust from Wakka was honesty and the complete faith that he would keep a secret. He found himself, instead of asking how the camp was going, pouring his heart out. He confessed that he suspected himself of being jealous of Kairi, that he had a "thing" for his new boss, that he had been thinking of Riku more often then he ought to. Just to round things off he threw in how much it hurt that Riku found the courage within himself to blacken Sora's eye. He knew that if the situation had been reversed he would never have been able to strike Riku. He sent off the e-mail, hoping that Wakka wouldn't take too long to respond.

Once the e-mail had been sent Sora sat there staring at the empty computer screen, not really watching the screen saver that eventually popped up. Why was he thinking these things? How hard had Riku hit him? What was wrong with him?

* * *

Author Notes: Thanks for reading everyone!

Right like I promised I'm going to talk a little bit about the original YCbtR. The decision to have Sora work in retail was really key to something I did. I had some problems way back in highschool I had deemed not worthy enough to worry about. So I got a job. Not the first job I ever had but the first job I ever worked during the school year. Any other job before that I made excuses to quit once school started up. Anyway this job I got was also the first one I had in retail, hence why Sora was working in retail. There was one difference though. I was working in a home decorative store and Sora was working in clothing. I really didn't know what I was talking about first time round, I made most of it up haha. I'm actually working in a clothing store now so it's changed some of my views about Soras job. I'm planning on expanding Sora's time at work and having his co-workers have bigger roles then they originally did. Perhaps all new chapters even. I'm not sure yet when I'm going to integrate these but they will exist I promise.

Also you may have noticed... no Kairi bashing. Kingdom Hearts 2 have changed my opinions on Kairi as well. Haha everyone's a victim of circumstance.

Well thanks again everyone for reading even if you don't read all my extra crap. Let me know what you think as always in a review. I treasure every one of them. I guess I ought to get back to my homework now.


	4. Chapter 4

RE: You Could be the Reason

Chapter Four

* * *

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the rights towards Kingdom Hearts or it's Characters. The plot is mine though.

Author Notes: This is late, this is late, this is soooooo late. I'm so sorry everyone things kinda sorta got out of hand for awhile there. It was just one thing after another. Homework picked up at school, we got a new manager and work who I didn't get along with. Had a lot of work on a cosplay I did, plus my computer crashed lost my entire hard drive. The bright side now is that since I am officially an unemployed bum again I'll have more time to work on writing. I tried to make this one long to make up for the wait and there's lots of new stuff. Enjoy!

* * *

Okay so I can be a little oblivious sometimes, a lot tends to go over my head. I can't imagine though what I've done to suddenly piss Riku off so much. I thought he didn't want any attention from me, I thought he wanted me to stay away from him and Kairi. He did warn me after all. Why the hell did he hit me then? Must everything be so complicated? Mom said she could fix it though... I fear she'll pull out her makeup bag for this one. The shiner I acquired whilst innocently minding my own business. Damn everything's so complicated.

* * *

Sora had guessed correctly that Ann's solution, temporary as it may be, was indeed something from the depths of her makeup bag. Naturally Sora had argued with her about it, only girls wore makeup. Anne had to counter back with grandiose stories of drag queens to counter his argument. This did nothing to soothe Soras feelings on the subject. They argued about it the whole time Sora was fixing his breakfast, Grandma's jelly on whole wheat toast, and even through the door as Sora was trying to get dressed for work. Ann eventually won, once Sora spotted himself in the mirror. Cloud was working today and Sora didn't want Cloud thinking he was some sort of ruffian. Ann covered his eye in concealer, which greatly helped reduce the look of the dark purple spot, now it simply looked as if he had a bag under one eye. Sora was willing to call this acceptable. Ann had a different idea and continued pulling products out of her bag. Which started a new argument.

"I'm not putting all that gunk on my face mom, this is fine enough." Sora argued trying to free himself from the washroom where he was now being held prisoner.

"Sora you look like you've had a bad nights sleep in only one eye, now get back over hear once I put some foundation on over top you'll never notice it."

"I don't want it, just leave it." Sora tried to tug his arm out of his mothers firm grasp. "It'll be fine just the way it is."

"I thought you were worried about what your boss would think." Ann pointed out.

"He's a guy mom we don't think this much into things." Sora defended. At this rate he was going to be late for the bus.

"If you let me put this on you I'll let you take the car to work today." Ann tried to bribe her son.

It almost worked too, Sora stopped struggling momentarily to think about the proposition. It would be nice to drive there and not have to worry about crowded buses, or worse running into someone else he wouldn't want to see. Then he thought about the negatives, the traffic was terrible in the islands business centre. Plus he would have to pay for parking, and he'd have to have that stuff on his face. "No thanks." He couldn't believe he was turning down such an offer.

"Come on Sora it won't be that bad."

"No Mom now please let me go before I'm late."

She reluctantly let go of his wrist she had been holding since he first tried to make a break for the bathroom door. "Fine if that's the way you want to go to work, it's your decision."

"Thank you." Sora felt bad. Of course he did, he loved his mom and trusted in her opinion, but no matter what he was still a guy and guys don't wear makeup.

The episode in the bathroom really had put him behind schedule and he had to run the two blocks to his stop to catch the bus in time. He had barely even remembered to grab his lunch before he ran out the door. He arrived at the store at ten to three, and waved at Yuffie through the window.

"Afternoon Sora!" She greeted enthusiastically.

"Hello." Sora countered as he came through the door.

"I'm just receiving new stock." She said gesturing to several open boxes in the corner. "Come back out here when you're ready."

"Are you all by yourself?"

"Yeah, but not anymore. Quistis had to call in sick, emergency dental appointment or something."

Sora nodded and went to put his things in the back. She hadn't said anything about his eye, hopefully it wasn't very noticeable. She had been distracted though. No he was just over thinking it. He shoved his jacket and lunch into his locker and began to wonder absently what time Cloud was starting today. He would have to check the schedule.

He jumped when Yuffie came into the back to store away a pile of t-shirts. "Hey Sora all ready for today?"

"O-oh yeah." Sora said blinking up at the cheerful girl.

"Yeah it might be a touch busier today, but things really don't seem to pick up until around Thur- Sora what happened?!"

"What? Oh." She had noticed. "It's nothing really."

Yuffie immediately closed the distance between them and started fussing over Sora's face. "Oh Sora it's all swollen."

"It's not that bad, I put ice on it. Really honestly."

"Does it hurt, if it hurts Sora you should go home." Yuffie seemed genuinely concerned, Sora was actually kind of touched.

"No no really it's fine don't worry about it so much, it's nothing. Besides someone already called in sick today" Sora said turning away from Yuffie and going through the door.

Yuffie followed him. "Sora." She started, but stopped as soon as Sora had begun to shake his head. "Oh fine if you want to be that way."

Sora was given a project to do, receive a package of jeans that had shown up the night before with a shipment and put them away with the rest of the denim. Yuffie spent the afternoon entering payroll into the computer, at least that's what she said she was doing, secretly Sora thought she was writing up an e-mail to someone. That could have been his imagination though. The afternoon had been as slow as the morning before, only the odd customer coming in here and there. Sora smiled and greeted everyone of them. He was a little proud of himself for that, he thought greeting every person would be a little intimidating.

Yuffie finished up with the computer and came over to help Sora un-package the next box he had grabbed. Sora found it a little distracting though whenever she would look over to him and smile slightly.

"What is it?" he asked, his irritation finally starting to get to him.

"Nothing... well it's just... are you wearing makeup?" She asked.

Sora began to splutter. "What? Well not because... it wasn't my idea... she made me!"

"Who's she?"

"My Mom, she forced it on me. Honestly I didn't want anything, she even tried to add more." Sora said exasperated.

Yuffie fell silent and began to chew absentmindedly on her bottom lip. "Sora I'm sorry but I'm just worried." She said after several minutes silence.

"I told you it's nothing."

"Who hit you Sora?"

"Nobody hit me, I never said anybody hit me." Sora defended. It sounded like a lie, even to him.

"Sora Clouds going to flip when he sees this. He doesn't take kindly to people beating on his employee's."

"I never said anyone beat me up."

Yuffie seemed to have made some sort of strange connection in-between all of his denials and her accusations. She suddenly was trying to force his shirt up. "Are you hurt anywhere else?"

"What? No!" Sora struggled with the girl, trying his best to keep his dignity in place as the slender girl was easily besting him and exposing several inches of his stomach. He could feel the heat in his face and knew he was blushing. "Yuffie please there are customers in the store!"

Indeed there were customers, two girls who were laughing raucously at the scene the two employee's were making.

Yuffie brushed them off. "Don't worry about them they're friends of mine." She said as she continued her best to relieve Sora of his shirt.

Sora didn't think the older lady at the front table was a friend of Yuffies though, as she was watching them out of the corner of her eye.

"Oh please Yuffie, please what do I have to do to get you to stop?" Sora was getting desperate.

"Tell me the truth!"

"No he only got me once, now please."

"He only got you once?" Yuffie said releasing Sora instantly. "So you were lying to me ."

"I'm sorry I just didn't want to make a big deal out of it, because it's not Yuffie it really, really isn't."

Yuffie scowled. "Sora if anybody hits you it is a big deal."

Sora didn't say anything instead he stared dejectedly at his shoes. Yuffie didn't say anything else, instead she went and started tweaking some of the mannequins' in the front window. It figured, the only thing the girl who never shut up had to do to make him feel bad was shut up. He sighed feeling guilty, for what he wasn't quite sure.

He checked the time on his watch, it was past 4:30. "Yuffie?"

"Hmm?" She said from the window a few pins stuck in her mouth.

"Aren't you off now?"

She reached up and took the pins from her mouth. "Yeah but I've got to stick around until Cloud gets here, he must be running late."

With that she went back to adjusting the new clothes on the mannequins. Something didn't feel right to Sora though, Yuffie shouldn't have to stay late just because Cloud was running late. Wasn't it his responsibility to be here on time? He dropped what he was working on and went to stand by the window so he could talk to Yuffie more directly.

"It's not right that you have to stay late."

She smiled at him. "It's no biggie Sora, if Quistis was here she'd be able to watch but she's not. Besides it's not like I hate being here. If Cloud was going to be seriously late he'd call. Really I don't mind keeping an eye out for a couple extra minutes here and there, down the road it'll work in my favour and I'll be forgiven if something happens and I can't get here when I should." She shrugged and continued straightening a jacket she had just finished pinning into place.

Sora was still standing there mulling it over, when Cloud came into view through the window. Yuffie waved but Cloud seemed to ignore her completely.

"Uh oh Sora watch out Clouds got a 'mood' going on. " Yuffie warned.

Sora's stomach did a summersault.

Cloud came through the door, the silver bell ringing above him. "Hey." Was all he said before disappearing into the back. Sora had noticed the morose look on his face as he walked past. Sora and Yuffie didn't say anything, neither of them even tried to move, they just stood there and stared at the door until he remerged without his jacket. He went to the till and started looking a few things up, still looking as sullen as he did when he first walked in.

Finally he noticed them staring. "What?"

"You're late." Yuffie said bluntly.

Sora's voice seemed to be stuck in his throat, he wasn't positive but he thought that he might actually be afraid of Cloud as he was at the moment.

"Traffic." He explained quickly and went back to what he was doing.

"Traffic? Really Cloud? What is with you and one word sentences today?" Yuffie said crossing the room to lean over the counter to poke Cloud in the arm.

"Nothing."

"Ah, I understand." Yuffie said, ignoring the fact that Cloud was rolling his eyes.

At first Sora thought she was being sarcastic but he came to realize that she actually knew what he was talking about, that 'nothing' was some sort of code.

"Well if I can trust you not to bite off Sora's head I think I'm going to be going home now seeing as I was off fifteen minutes ago." Yuffie said as she moved away from the counter.

Cloud only nodded.

Yuffie disappeared into the back and reappeared with all of her things. "All right boys think you can survive without me?"

"Just leave Yuffie I'm not going to pay you any extra overtime." Cloud said, waving her out the door.

She stopped next to Sora, and whispered to him. "Just so you know, ninety nine percent of the time 'nothing' means Arieth."

Sora frowned but still waved at Yuffie through the window, despite everything he had fun that day. He wasn't so sure about the rest of it though, judging from Clouds mood it was going to be rather awkward. Sora went back to his work doing his best to keep one side of his face averted from Cloud.

Cloud clicked the radio off, and a dense silence filled the room. It made Sora feel nervous, but he figured that it must be what Cloud wanted. The only noise Sora could hear was the crinkle of the plastic as he took it off each new shirt, and the slight tick of the clock hanging on the wall. It was driving him crazy, as far as he could tell Cloud was doing nothing but staring off into space. Sora really didn't want Cloud to keep acting like this, it bothered him. Plus the silence was getting to him.

"Cloud?" Sora said softly, his voice seeming loud despite the quite tone.

"Hmm?" Cloud responded not even looking his way.

Sora moved a little closer. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, fine."

A lie, Sora knew for sure. Cloud was barely even acknowledging that he was there. Sora crossed the rest of the distance between them, he wanted Cloud to know that he was seriously concerned for him.

"You're not fine Cloud." Sora said firmly, he wanted to help.

Finally Cloud turned toward him. "I told you... Sora! What happened to your face?!"

Cloud moved out from behind the counter and guided Sora's face closer to the light so he could get a better look. Sora prayed that he wouldn't notice the blush across his cheeks, he hadn't expected Cloud to move so close.

"Nothing really." Sora attempted to free his face from Clouds grip, seeing as he hadn't let go since he had moved Soras face to the light.

"Tell me." Cloud growled out. "It looks like it hurts."

"I'll tell you what happened if you tell me what's up with you." Sora tried to bargain.

Cloud didn't say anything for a bit, instead he wiped some of the makeup off and Sora saw concern cross his eyes. Deep down Sora felt a little pang of regret, only a year ago Riku would have been the one concerned for Sora's well being.

"Please Sora what happened? Was it an accident?"

He contemplated telling a lie, it would be easy enough to say that he tripped and knocked his face on his desk at home. Somehow he knew it wouldn't feel right to lie to Cloud, more then likely he would be able to tell anyway. Sora also knew that he actually didn't have to tell Cloud anything. What happened in his own personal life outside of work actually didn't matter to his co-workers. He couldn't deny Clouds request though, so he sucked it up and told the truth.

"I had a bit of a run in with some old friends." He supplied, hoping that Cloud would be able to put the pieces together.

"Old friends. You mean they hit you?"

"Something like that."

Cloud frowned and ran one finger along the bruise. Sora winced slightly at the contact, he felt like he was being babied but he didn't seem to mind it so much.

"Some friends. Did you at least try to hit back?" Cloud asked finally removing his hands from Sora's face, they hung limply at his sides.

"I couldn't do that." Sora shook his head. "He used to be my friend, we went through a lot... Riku and I."

"Sounds like the kids a piece of garbage if this is how he treats his friends." Cloud said a little angrily.

"Things have been hard for him." Sora stopped, thinking over what he had just said. How could things be hard for Riku, he had everything he could possibly want. Kairi, all his friends, good looks, good grades, rumour was that Ms. Belle the attractive school librarian even wanted to jump his bones.

"Bullshit." Cloud said moving back to the counter, and settling himself back onto the stool.

"So I told you... now you have to tell me." Sora pressured, leaning onto the countertop.

Cloud didn't answer right away, he looked sullenly down at his shoes for a good minute before he said anything. "My ex called."

"And?" Sora said trying to dig for more. He had gathered as much after Yuffies hint.

"And we talked."

"That's it?" Sora felt a little disappointed, but he didn't want to pry.

"About it I think."

Sora felt cheated, he had opened up to Cloud, told him the truth or at least enough information for him to piece together the truth. Sora had the least amount of knowledge about Clouds history with his mysterious ex-girlfriend. Perhaps he did want to pry... just a little.

"So that's all you're going to tell me?" Sora might even be pouting a bit by now. "You are your ex talked and that's all you're going to say. That could mean anything, lots of people talk to their ex's and they don't walk around looking like they just sucked on a sour lemon."

"Well it's not like your story was all that climatic."

"My story?! I was walking home, minding my own business when I ran into my two former best friends. The ones who left me behind in the dust so that they could move on up in the world and hang out with the popular crowd. I might have insulted one of them and got hit for it, I deserved it. I couldn't even begin to tell you about all the conflicting emotions I'm experiencing right now, but all I want to do is to help you." Sora could feel all the frustration, all the pain, and anger that had been welled up bubbling up to the surface. "How am I supposed to help you if I don't know what this, whatever this is, what it is. All you tell me is that you talked that could mean anything. It could be that you resolved nothing and it's still all the same as it was before. It could be that you've cut off all ties. It could be that she want to come back. It could, it could..."

Sora trailed off, the only thing Cloud did was raise an eyebrow.

After a moment Cloud spoke. "I think you're the one who needs the help Sora."

Sora shook his head. "No I got what I deserved."

"No you didn't." Cloud fell silent.

Sora didn't move, he remained at the counter examining the fake wood grain that made up the top.

A puff of air escaped Cloud, Sora wasn't sure if it was a sigh or a breath that had only made it half way to fruition. Never the less the sound of air escaping through Clouds lips caught Sora's attention and made him look up from the wood grain.

"We were engaged." Cloud said, his voice was soft barely more then a whisper, but in the empty store Sora had no problem hearing it. "I met her more then seven years ago in a flower shop, she worked there. I was buying flowers for Tifa. She was in the hospital, broke her wrist at a aikido match. I'd never been so taken with a girl. I kept going back to buy flowers, everyone thought I was crazy I had so many of them at home. One day she finally asked me out, I don't know why after all that time I never asked her. We went for dinner, then we started spending more and more time together and then next thing I knew we were going to get married."

His voice was getting thick with emotion. Sora was starting to feel guilty for forcing Cloud to spill all of this to him, he hadn't even thought about how hard this must be for Cloud to talk about. "Cloud? I'm-" Sora tried to apologize but Cloud cut him off.

"I fucked it up though, I threw it all away. I cheated on her. Twice. The first time I was lucky enough that she forgave me, I promised that it would never happen again. Only it did... I did it again. I can't believe I did it. I told her about it right away I felt so guilty. I broke her heart. I don't blame her for calling the marriage off. I love her, still. I love talking to her, but whenever I do I can't help but think about how badly I screwed up. That I gave up the best thing that I ever had. I feel twice as empty every time I talk to her. I hurt her so much, that's why it's such a good thing that she found someone good for her. Someone who respects her so much. Zack is so much better for her then I ever was."

Sora was shocked, he had expected maybe a quick explanation, what they talked about in summary. Not the whole history. He felt awful for making Cloud relive it all. "I'm sorry Cloud... were you really together for seven years."

He couldn't keep his big mouth shut could he. Here he was feeling so bad for what he did, but all he was doing was making it worse. Open mouth insert foot.

Cloud nodded. "Yeah, happiest time in my life. Not that we didn't have our problems, every couple has their problems."

"That's a long time." Sora said lamely.

Cloud gave Sora a weak smile. "You know... you're the first person I've told the truth to. That I did such a horrible thing."

"I promise I won't tell a soul." Sora wasn't sure why Cloud would tell him that if he had it buried so deep.

"You're a good kid Sora." He laughed weakly, almost as if he couldn't believe himself. "I feel like I could tell you almost anything."

Sora smiled at Cloud. Cloud had relieved himself of some of his demons, perhaps he could do the same thing.

"You know, Riku and I have been friends our whole life."

"Really?" Cloud asked finally getting off of his stool, he actually looked a little happier then he did when he first walked in.

"Yeah, since diapers. We used to go over to the island just off shore." Sora laughed a bit at the memories. "We always dreamed about seeing other places, we had no idea back then that the mainland really was so close. Then Kairi moved to the island, she had all the stories about where she came from. At least the ones she could remember. She was pretty young when she moved here with her family. Her Dad's the mayor now you know?"

"No kidding."

"Yeah, she's involved in a whole bunch of political clubs at school."

"Going to follow in her fathers footsteps?"

Sora shook his head. "I doubt it, she doesn't actually enjoy them much. I think some of her girlfriends tease her about it."

"Yet she's still popular." Cloud actually sounded incredulous at the idea.

"Yeah but with Riku at her side how could she not be?"

"It seems she's better at high school politics then the real stuff."

Sora laughed. "Yeah no kidding, she knows how to work the system."

Cloud laughed along and began to work again. He went to the window where Yuffie had been changing mannequins and took back up where she left off. Sora felt good that he was getting back to normal, and proud that he had been a part of the recovery process.

"Is that the last of the new stuff?" Cloud asked suddenly back to business.

"Yeah I think so."

"Good we've got a visit from HQ in a couple of days. If we can get the store in order we shouldn't get any heck." Cloud explained.

"HQ?" Sora felt a little dumb.

"Head office, that's kind of our little nick name for them. Rumour is that the owner is going to be stopping in."

Sora saw a dark shadow cross Clouds face briefly, but it was gone before Sora could remark upon it.

"Hopefully he won't be here long. I like the short visits, when he doesn't have time to linger."

Sora nodded, he understood the feeling completely. He was hoping that he wouldn't be scheduled for the visit, just the idea of the pressure of having the owner there was enough to get him sweating. Let alone some man breathing down his neck inspecting his every action.

The rest of the night passed quickly, both Sora and Cloud finished their projects as they talked. Sora had told Cloud all about the e-mails he had gotten from his friends Wakka and Tidus about blitz camp. Cloud couldn't believe that Sora hadn't gone himself. At nine Cloud instructed Sora to lock the door after the last customer of the night had left. He had even offered Sora a ride home after they had finished closing up the store. That night Sora went to sleep content and feeling delighted that he had actually managed to help Cloud out.

* * *

Sora had the next day off, he didn't mind though. It didn't seem quite so daunting after being genuinely busy during the last two days. Ann was at the office today so instead of sitting and bugging her, he spent his time doing chores. He washed the dishes, put the trash in the back, scrubbed the toilet, and threw his laundry into the wash. As he was waiting for the first load to finished he flicked on his computer to see if Wakka or Tidus had sent him another e-mail. He was still curious about what Wakka might have to say about the last e-mail he had sent him.

He felt happy to see an e-mail from Wakka in his inbox, still nothing from Tidus though. He clicked the link excitedly, though somewhat dreading what he had to say. Naturally he started off with the niceties, telling Sora about the last couple of days at camp, explaining how distracted Tidus was by the girl in his last story, clearly explaining why Sora hadn't received an e-mail in a while. Finally after a few paragraphs of that Wakka got to the point. Sora was a little disappointed, he wasn't sure what he was expecting perhaps an open well off unending knowledge on the subject of relationships. He did feel a little relieved that Wakka didn't seem weirded out about the fact that Sora was apparently crushing after a couple of guys. In short Wakka told Sora to take it easy and not to over analyse the situation, such as he was probably doing up to that point. Of course he also had to point out that if any of Riku or Kairi's new friends were to find out about these worries of Sora's they would have a whole new topic to bully him with. Oh and he was not jealous of Kairi, that was a silly thing to think.

Sora read through the e-mail several times, trying his best to focus on the positive aspects of it. Still the one thing he couldn't help but be drawn to was when Wakka pointed out that it was silly of him to think he was jealous of Kairi. The more he thought about it though the more sense it made. He was jealous of Kairi, he really was. He couldn't help it, he wasn't even sure why for sure. He was staring blankly at the screen when the harsh buzz from the washing machine sounded through the empty house. He jumped not expecting the noise, but it was enough to draw him out of the funk he had fallen into.

He hurried off down the stairs and threw another load in. The silence that seemed to have gripped the house was making him feel nervous so he put on some music and threw himself into more house work. Ann was a little shocked when she came home that night.

She walked into the house using small cautious steps. "Sora what happened here? It's so... so clean."

"I got a little bored." Sora explained from the sink where he was just finishing washing up the last of the dishes.

"You've been bored before Sora. You've never done this."

Sora just shrugged as he rinsed off a plate.

"Okay who are you and what have you done with my Sora."

Sora laughed. "Geeze Mom you don't have to act like that. Can't you be a little grateful for once."

"Oh I suppose so. I guess it's my night to treat for dinner." She said before she went to put her things away in her office.

"You know I can't cook Ma!" Sora hollered after her.

They had a nice family dinner, sitting at the table and swapping stories. Sora was just glad he had managed to successfully distract himself for the day. He went to bed feeling a little lighter, knowing that he had work the next day. Still he couldn't help but wonder what he would do to distract himself on his next day off. God he was so pathetic.

* * *

The next day he got to meet some more of his co-workers. He showed up during the lunch rush, Yuffie was busy helping what looked to be a particularly fussy customer in the fitting rooms and Cloud waved to him from the cash desk. He also passed another unfamiliar face, a tall brunette wearing what was unmistakably a cowboy hat. He was early so he sat in the back and flipped through some of the girls magazines. Wondering slightly how they could find details of strangers lives so interesting. He flipped past an article about which celebrities were expecting, and another about a famous couple who had split up, and a third about some twisted love triangle on a movie set. He had the distinct feeling that it was Yuffie who bought all of the magazines.

"Sora!"

Sora jumped at the suddenly loud noise behind him.

"Hi Yuffie. What are you doing back here?" Sora asked, surprised to see the girl back here when she was supposed to be on the floor working.

"Checking for a size, though I'm pretty sure we don't have it. Your bruise has faded nicely I see."

"Ah. Thanks." Sora said rubbing at his bruise that indeed was a few shades lighter. "It's been busy today?"

"Not as busy as it should be, business has been slowing down lately." Yuffie said as she scavenged through a pile. "Just as I thought she said." Coming back out of the pile empty handed.

"Don't have it?" Sora asked though he was sure he knew the answer.

"Nope, I'll bring her another colour though." Yuffie said as she grabbed the size in a blue. "Hope it'll be good enough. See you at one Sora."

"Yeah." Sora said waving slightly.

When One o'clock rolled around Sora went back out onto the sales floor, feeling more educated on the lives of celebrities then he ever wanted to be. As usual just like someone had waved a magic wand the store was empty once more.

"Yay Sora's starting!" Yuffie said happily. "See you."

"Are you off?" Sora asked feeling a little cheated after their mini talk before.

"No it's time for my break." She said laughing as she walked past him. "Have fun with the boys."

Sora looked back to the front of the store, Cloud was fiddling with something on the computer as usual and cowboy had was fixing a table.

"Sora." Cloud said not looking up from the computer. "You don't mind getting started on tidy duty do you. I've got to get this e-mail done."

"Yeah sure you got it."

Sora went to the table nearest the one cowboy hat was working on. A little curious about his new co-worker.

"Howdy you must be Sora." Cowboy hat said smiling as Sora came near. "The names Irvine."

"Nice to meet you."

"Hey nice shiner, hope you messed the other guy up good." Irvine said with a laugh.

Sora laughed weakly along with him. "Thanks, um... I'm not much of a fighter really."

"Ah we can't all be I guess. I hope it wasn't something lame like you tripped and fell."

"No I was actually hit."

"Hey Cloud turn on some music why don't you. I'm going crazy here." Irvine said complaining loudly to the manager.

"Only if you can give me a good excuse to give as to why we're not meeting our sales quota." Cloud said, the clicks from the keyboard only pausing slightly as he did so.

"Because people are assholes and don't want to drop a couple hun. every time they come in." Irvine provided.

"Nice try but I might get fired for that one."

"Come on Cloud music."

Cloud rolled his eyes and turned on the radio, Irvine seemed much happier after that. Sora smiled and continued to work. Irvine and Cloud continued to banter back and forth, but Sora was happy just staying out of it.

Once Yuffie finished with her break she pulled Sora away from his tiding duties and got him started on cleaning the fitting rooms. It was tough work but Sora didn't mind it. In fact he would almost say that scrubbing down the walls and doors was satisfying. He felt accomplished once he had finished and stepped back to admire his work. Cloud seemed to like it too.

"Hey not bad." Cloud said.

"Thanks." Sora felt like he was beaming. Not really sure if it was from the hard work, or from the compliment Cloud paid him.

"If only everyone could get those doors so white."

Sora felt his face start to split from the grin he seemed to have no control over.

However another voice interrupted. "Cloooud can I go now?"

"Depends. What time is it Yuffie?" Cloud asked rolling his eyes.

"Time for me to go home."

Sora could hear Irvine cracking up from somewhere else in the store. He had a hard time keeping the smile off of his face.

"I guess then, if it's really four already." Cloud said freeing the girl.

With whoops of glee Yuffie tore into the back room.

"Probably for the best anyway." Irvine said casually. "She was starting to get on my nerves. Shoving her work off onto poor little Sora like that."

Cloud shrugged. "At least he did a better job the she would have."

As Cloud left Sora where he stood to go do whatever it was managers did, he gave Sora an affectionate pat on the head. Mussing Sora's spikes.

The afternoon wore on and eventually Irvine went home. Sora had thoroughly enjoyed Irvine's company and was looking forward to his next shift with the cowboy. It wound down to just Sora and Cloud closing up the store. Sora was doing an oddball job that Cloud had found for him, changing a few price tags. The last customer they had seen had been nearly an hour ago and Cloud was leaning against the counter looking bored.

"Sora would you believe me if I told you this time last year, we would have been at nearly double the sales we've done so far." Cloud asked.

Sora looked up from his tags and nodded. "Sure would, I never thought it would be this boring at work."

"I hope things pick up soon."

Almost as if someone had looked down on Cloud and decided to answer his prayers the chime above the door rang. That meant a customer!

Cloud looked up and saw a blonde with spiky hair, actually he reminded Cloud of Sora. Sora was to busy counting the tags in front of him to notice.

The blonde spoke up immediately though. "Hey Sora!"

Sora looked up and grinned. "Roxas! What are you doing here?"

Cloud went back to looking bored. He had been hoping for more.

"Aunt Ann said you'd be here. Have you heard any of the news yet?"

"News?" Sora was confused, why would Roxas have come here. He lived on the big island.

"They've shut down Twilight High. Something about poor building conditions, sounds about right that place was starting to fall down around us."

"So are they rebuilding it from scratch?"

Sora looked over Roxas' shoulder to see if Cloud minded the visit. He was shuffling papers and looked as if he wasn't paying much attention to anything. Sora guessed it was fine.

Roxas shook his head. "They've already tore it down, but now they're saying it's not in the budget to replace it."

Sora was a little perplexed. "So how are you supposed to go to school then?" He couldn't help the image of Roxas and his friends sitting in an empty field trying to learn math while the gym class kicked soccer balls around them.

"We're all being sent off to different schools. I'm going to be staying with you and Aunt Ann until everything as been worked out."

"Really you're going to be living with me? Cool!" Sora was excited, he had always gotten along with his cousin. His friends on the other hand Sora didn't like as much. They all seemed to be in some sort of gang.

Roxas nodded an affirmative. "Yep starting in September. Mom's a little broke up about it, Aunt Ann seems to be calming her down though."

"You've always been a momma's boy Roxas." Sora said, trying his best to make a joke. In all truth Roxas would do anything to get away from his mother. He claimed she was smothering him.

"Hopefully this time apart will do her good. Get her to understand that I'm not always going to be there."

Sora nodded his agreement. "I'm looking forward to it. I won't wish away my summer though."

"Please don't, I would rather enjoy my summer as well."

Roxas stuck around for a while, tried on a few things and used Sora's discount to buy a couple items as well. Sora was just glad that Cloud hadn't objected to it. He asked Cloud about it after Roxas had left.

"Are you sure it was okay for Roxas to come in here like that?"

Cloud shrugged his shoulders. "Not like there were any other customers in here for him to bother. Plus he did buy something."

Sora smiled feeling a millions times better. "Thanks Cloud."

"You guys are related?" Cloud asked, obviously doing everything he could to fill the silence.

"Yeah, Roxas is my cousin. He lives over on the big island. Uncle will probably be glad to be rid of him for a while. I can't say the same thing for my aunt though."

"It sounds like he's looking forward to getting away from his parents for awhile."

Sora nodded his agreement. "I just wonder how many of his friends are coming too."

"You don't like his friends?" Cloud asked, propping his chin on one arm.

"Not all of them, some of them are all right, some of them are just bad eggs though."

"Guess all you can do is wait and see."

"I wonder if Roxas is going to be in any of my classes."

Sora and Cloud passed the evening away talking about school and what it might be like to have Sora's cousin living with him. They closed up and Cloud gave Sora a ride home, however Roxas and his parents had left by the time Sora got there.

Sora sat in the kitchen with Ann, who was already in her pyjamas. They sat and talked and ate popcorn whilst discussing future arrangements. "So is Roxas going to stay in the room next door to me?"

"Well that's what I was thinking. The room downstairs isn't very nice." Ann said around a mouthful of popcorn.

"It must be terrible for Roxas, his last year in school and he doesn't get to spend it with his friends."

"Don't be silly Sora. He may not be sharing his last year with all of his friends but he's not going to be the only one from Twilight Town coming to the island. The kids are getting spread out everywhere. I'm sure a few of his friends will wind up here as well."

Sora scowled down at the bowl of popcorn. "I hope it's the good ones."

"I know what you mean Sora, but there is no point in focusing on that. If it happens it happens. We'll deal with it when we have too." Ann let out a big sigh. "Sometimes I have a hard time believing a good kid like Roxas can get wound up with those criminals."

Sora didn't respond.

Ann continued on though, not really needing Sora's opinion on the matter. "You know, sometimes I wonder if it's because your aunt smothers him so much, or it might be that your uncle lets him get away with so much. Sora if you ever get caught up with kids like that I'll never forgive you."

"I know Mom, you don't have to worry about it. I don't want to even be in the same room as them."

"You're a good kid Sora, I love you."

Sora couldn't help but smile at how sappy his mom could get. "I know Mom, I love you too."

She smiled at him. "Now come on and get ready for bed. It's getting late."

"I know Mom, night."

Sora left Ann in the kitchen, he knew she wanted to get rid of his so that she could finish the last of the popcorn herself.

Sora tried not to think about how horrible his next year at school could be if some of Roxas's friends happen to end up in any of his classes. He had met a few of them once, years ago when he was visiting Roxas in Twilight Town. His mother had been right about calling them criminals, some of them had criminal records under their belts already. Xemnas, Sora had met him. He was their leader, and he had an immediate dislike for Sora. What surprised Sora was the fact that the guy was still in school, that he hadn't dropped out to go run a drug ring or something. Sora fell asleep feeling uneasy.

* * *

Author Notes: Was it worth the wait? Probably not, I hope to get the next chapter up soon. Before I leave on holidays at the end of June. That's good news right? Well next chapter is going to have lots of new stuff for you to enjoy. I'm going to be fleshing out some new elements I added last chapter. Hahaha.

Onto the tid bit info. The original YCbtR, really had no plan. I was working blind half the time with little to no planning ahead, until near the end when I decided it had to go somewhere. This time around I have the original story as a plan XD. Though I also have a lot of side notes for this one, which I'm hoping will help resolve a lot of the side stuff I had started and never actually did anything with. Such as Roxas and Axel coming into the picture. See look it makes more sense this time around doesn't it. Though originally when I started YcbtR, Roxas was still known as the "blonde haired kid." Ah fond memories.

Drop me a line in a review please! Let me know how mad you are at me for being so late, if you liked/hated the chapter. Or if you have any questions, in particular anything you'd like me to add into the tid bit thing let me know. I love hearing your responses!


	5. Chapter 5

RE: You Could be the Reason

Chapter Five

* * *

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the rights towards Kingdom Hearts or it's characters. The plot is mine though.

Author Notes: Ah better timing on this chapter right. As promised this is all new material, nothing of this is in the original story. Plus I've introduced another character that wasn't in the original and gave them a pretty big role, plot wise at least.

* * *

I'd like to say something witty, or insightful, but I guess I'm just not that type of person. I wish I had something more to tell you, but I don't. I mean I guess, oh I don't know it's hard to explain. It's like your life is a puzzle and you've got to fit the pieces all together. Only I think I'm missing some of the pieces...

* * *

Sora had the next few days off. He was starting to wish that part time work could fill his days a little more then it did. In fact in those few days off the most exciting thing to happen to him was a phone call from work. Quistis, who he had not yet met face to face, reminding him that they were going to have a head office visit. That he should do his best to provide the best possible customer service, and to dress as professionally as possible. Sora felt his spirits sink a little. The owner of the company was due for a visit, that much he had known. He had been hoping that the visit would have occurred during his time off. He was immediately intimidated, he couldn't even imagine what kind of person the owner must be. Even Cloud seemed put off about the idea of the head office visit. He was constantly having to send those e-mails, progress reports and what not. He was even afraid that his position would be axed and he would be without his part time job, that at least fill his summer part of the time.

It was without a doubt, as Sora approached the Midnight Tree in the morning of his following shift, that Sora was more then a little nervous. He had worn the blue shirt his mother had bought him, with the best pair of slacks he owned. He lifted his hand, pleased to see that it wasn't shaking too badly, and gave the door an experimental tug. Sometimes it was unlocked in the mornings. Zidane would leave it open if he knew someone was going to be coming in, Yuffie also tended to keep the door open. This morning however it was securely locked. Sora stood there and waited for someone to come out onto the sales floor that would open it up for him. He didn't want to call the store and seem impatient. He didn't have to wait long however, two people came out of the back. One a professional looking woman with blonde hair pulled back out of her face, and a pair of glasses perched delicately on her nose. The other was a tall man with long silver hair, he wore a dark suit. Neither of them seemed the most welcoming. However Sora was determined to do his best and gave a feeble wave through the window. The woman came and opened the door, sticking out her head to get a better look at him.

"You're Sora right?"

Sora nodded.

"Ah good, come in. I'm Quistis." She extended her hand to him, which Sora shook immediately. "Nice to finally meet you."

Sora smiled, she seemed more friendly then her appearance let on. "Yes nice to meet you face to face at least."

He felt a little relieved, at least he knew who she was. Which meant the tall, scary looking man must be the owner. This did little to ease his nerves.

Sora wasn't exactly pleased however when she lead him right to the owner.

"Sephiroth. This is Sora that I was telling you about. Cloud and Yuffie both say that he's been doing a wonderful job so far." She then looked at Sora. "This is Sephiroth, he's the owner."

Sora shook his hand and tried a clumsy greeting. Sephiroth however did little to acknowledge Sora any further. Sora used that as a good excuse to get off the floor and into the back. Just to get out of the mans presence. Before he went through the doors he did however hear him ask Quistis why Cloud was running so late. Sora didn't hear the answer.

He stashed his things in the locker and checked the time he was still early and had plenty of time before his shift started. He took a seat and tried to calm his nerves. He could always hope that it would be a short visit, or that Sephiroth would spend most of his time cooped up in the little makeshift office that had been set up in the back. Really it was more of a broom-closet with a desk shoved in it. The only thing Sora really knew about the seldom used office was that was where most of the paperwork was stored. He was also a little worried about why Cloud was late, wasn't Cloud late last time too.

He jumped when the phone suddenly rang. He had been so caught up in his thoughts and nerves, he hadn't been aware he had zoned out. A moment later Quistis stuck her head into the back.

"Hey Sora?"

"Uh, yeah!" He did his best but he couldn't help that his voice cracked.

"That was Cloud, he said he would be here in about an hour. Would you mind starting a little early?"

"Oh yeah sure that's fine." Well at least Cloud was okay.

"Great thanks so much. He said that there was some sort of emergency last night and didn't get to bed till late. Slept in I guess." Quistis explained quickly.

"Yeah it's no problem, I'm glad to cover."

Sora followed her out onto the sales floor, he could see the sun starting to peak over some of the buildings out the window. Sephiroth was adjusting one of the mannequins. Quistis thankfully lead Sora further away and got him started on refolding a some of the piles on a table. Apparently Sephiroth wanted them folded differently and Sora was happy to comply as long as it kept him busy and out of trouble.

He concentrated on his work, and did everything he could do to not look at Sephiroth. One shirt at a time, fold, fold, fold, one pile after another. It at least passed the time, he even took the opportunity to switch the colours around. He preferred the way he laid them out better then they were originally. He was about half way done his last pile when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up to see Sephiroth looking at him.

He gulped, had he done something wrong?

"Looks like Cloud did a good job hiring you. Your table looks good."

Sora smiled, he was glad to be paid the compliment. Sephiroth still had his hand on Sora's shoulder, Sora had noticed this.

"Um... t-thank you."

"You should try redressing the mannequins next time we have a move."

Before Sora had a chance to say anything else the bell over the door chimed. Sora looked up to see Cloud coming in. He was a little red in the face, like he had just been running, probably from rushing to work. Though he also looked angry. He crossed the space between the door and to where Sora stood with Sephiroth.

"Get your hands off of him." Cloud growled out.

Sora looked at the hand that seemed to be tightening further on his shoulder.

"I don't believe I'm doing anything inappropriate Cloud." Sephiroth's voice was calm and even, despite Clouds attitude. "I think you also own me an appropriate reason as to why you're nearly two hours late."

Cloud didn't say anything, he instead grabbed Sephiroth around the wrist and forced the hand off of Sora's shoulder. He turned on his heal after that and went into the back, Sephiroth followed. The atmosphere was tense after that, Sora found that he had a hard time relaxing after that. Quistis gave a nervous laugh.

"I wouldn't worry too much about it. Cloud and Sephiroth don't exactly get along. It's always been like this, though Cloud seems to be getting worse and worse as time wears on."

Sora nodded, mimicking Quistis's laugh. Today looked like it was going to be hell.

Quistis cleared her throat. "Uh, well it's about time we opened up. Would you mind unlocking the door and flipping the sign Sora."

Sora nodded, and did just as he was asked. "Sure."

As usual it was a slow morning with only a few customers wandering in and out. Rinoa showed up just before her shift started. That was also about the same time Sephiroth came back out onto the floor. He looked around with a dissatisfied set to his jaw. There was no sign of Cloud. Sora did his best to ignore the low talk Sephiroth was having with Quistis and instead focused on the one and only customer in the fitting rooms. He was in the process of removing some items that the woman didn't want out of her room, while she had another look around the store, when Rinoa started her shift.

She seemed rather happy, and not nervous at all about the owner being present. "Hi Sora nice to see you again."

Sora waved back, flashing her a smile.

After his customer finished grabbing a few other things and went back into her room, Rinoa and Sephiroth approached him. Sora could feel his stomach knot up in apprehension all over again.

"Hey Sora." Rinoa said all over again. "I'm going to be taking over your customer for you."

"I wanted you to help me move some things around." Sephiroth said, explaining why Rinoa would be taking over his job.

"Uh. S-sure yeah." Sora managed to splutter out.

"That's not a problem is it?" Sephiroth asked.

Sora felt really short next to the imposing man. "No not at all." He said with a grin.

He followed Sephiroth who explained some of the changes he wanted to make. Nothing really big, just change some shelves on one wall, adjust the order of the colours on another wall, and swap two tables around. Sora just focused on what he was doing, trying his best not to feel nervous. He kept telling himself that there was no reason to feel scared in the first place. He was doing his job and he was doing it well. Not to mention they few things that he didn't know he could chalk up to still being fairly new. Time passed quickly as he was doing the things Sephiroth had asked of him. Soon it was his break, and after that the lunch hour rush. Sephiroth looked his happiest during the rush, the odd time he stuck his head out to check on their progress. Still there had been no sign of Cloud at all.

As they were cleaning up the lunch mess Sora finally asked Rinoa about Clouds absence. "Rinoa? Where's Cloud been all day?"

"Oh Sephiroth probably has him locked up in that office of theirs. Probably bitching him out about the way he filed the end of the night reports or something." She explained.

"Oh..." That made sense.

"Sephiroth loves to make Cloud miserable I think. He finds the smallest things and blows up on him about it. Clouds always trapped in the office when he's here. He hates being there too. Not that I can blame him it's so cramped in there and there's no windows." Rinoa continued.

"It must be terrible." Sora could just imagine what it would be like to have such an imposing man breathing down your neck like that. On top of that to be trapped in such a small room like that with him.

"Yeah no kidding. You're lucky Sora he seems to have taken a shine to you."

"He has?" Sora asked, he wasn't sure how he felt about that.

"Yeah that's why he gave you so much work to do." Rinoa clarified.

"He likes me so he gives me work? That doesn't sound like something you do to someone you like."

Sora heard Quistis laugh. "You really don't have a good comprehension about business do you Sora?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" He couldn't help but feel a little offended.

"It means, he doesn't like you as a friend, or even as a person. He likes you as an employee, as someone who works well. It's because you do a good job tiding things and organizing and working with customers that he likes you. He's strictly professional when it comes to his employees." the blonde answered.

Rinoa shrugged. "That doesn't make it a bad thing, it just means that he doesn't like you the same way the rest of us do, or Cloud."

"Honestly Sora. I've never seen Cloud take to anyone as fast as he has you. He talks about you all the time."

Sora looked at Quistis with disbelief. He had always been a people person, and had always made friends easily but they made Cloud sound like he didn't get along with anybody.

"It's true." Rinoa added. "He's got a soft spot for you."

"You should have seen how mad he was when he got in this morning Rinoa." Quistis said as she wiped the counter clean.

"Who Cloud?"

"Yeah, Sephiroth was barely touching Sora and he flipped."

Just like that the two girls switched into gossip mode. Sora smiled not really wanting to take part in the conversation. He glanced at the clock on the wall, at least it was almost time for him to go home, just over an hour to go.

"Oh look who's here." Rinoa said as the silver bell chimed.

"Hey Rinoa what's up?" Zidane said casually waving at the girls.

"Sephiroth and Cloud are in the back so watch out." The brunette girl warned.

"Oh shit!" Zidane swore. "I forgot he was going to be here today."

Sora smiled, it was sort of evident that Zidane had forgot just from what he was wearing. The holes in the knees of his jeans were evidence enough.

"Well if you get a move on you can get something else to wear." Quistis pointed out. "You've got ten minutes.

Sora helped Zidane select a new pair of pants and a simple sweater to through on over his t-shirt. Zidane looked a little panicked as he changed into the new clothes. "I'm going to have to pay for these on my break okay Quistis?"

Quistis shrugged. "Don't tell me. Sora, Cloud, and I are going to be off when it's time for your break."

"Aww man. How long is he going to be here?" Zidane said as he grabbed his bag and shoved his jeans into it.

"No idea." Rinoa said. "Hey Sora how far did you get on that list he gave you?"

Sora pulled out the list. It was organized point for point on the things that needed to be changed. Sora had been crossing them off as he finished them. "Um... I'm about half way through it."

"So he'll be here as long as it takes to get everything done most likely." Quistis answered.

Sora felt bad, he should have gotten everything done quicker. "I'm sorry." He said to Zidane, once he came back out from the back.

"Don't be sorry, you got a lot done. I can't believe he gave you all that stuff to do. Did Quistis have a list too?" Zidane asked as he looked over the list that was now worn from spending the day in Sora's pocket.

"I think so. She seemed to be busy doing things all day long, at least."

"Ah she's always finding things to do, but seeing at she's Sephiroths favourite around here I wouldn't doubt it."

"Right." Sora answered dumbly back. He really had no idea how the owner worked or what his expectations were.

"It looks like you got all the hard stuff done anyway Sora. Rinoa and I will be able to finish this up in no time." Zidane took the list from Sora and shoved it into his own pocket. "In the mean time lets get as much done as we can before you go home."

Sora, Quistis, and Zidane managed to finish off a few more points on the list, while Rinoa concentrated her time on the few customers around. The last hour of Soras' shift passed quickly. At four on the dot Sephiroth emerged from the back followed by Cloud. Cloud had all of his things with him and he didn't say anything to anyone, instead he walked out the door and disappeared around the corner. Zidane seemed to sag visually when Sephiroth looked his way. Quistis grabbed Soras' shoulders and guided him to the back.

He couldn't help but feel worried as he grabbed his things out of his locker. "Is Cloud alright?" He asked Quistis without even glancing her way.

"He'll be fine, just stressed out is all. He won't have gone far." Quistis answered.

"Oh."

Rinoa checked their bags on their way out. Sephiroth said good bye as she was glancing in Soras lunch bag.

"It was nice to meet you Sora." He said in his strong, calm voice.

"It was nice to meet you as well... sir." He felt horribly uncomfortable but not as nearly nervous as he was in the morning.

"I'll be back again tomorrow so I'll see you then." He informed them as they left the store.

Outside Sora went to turn to go catch his bus but was stopped when Quistis grabbed him by the wrist. "Come on we have to go find Cloud." She said.

"Right." Sora was actually happy to have an excuse to find the man.

They turned and went in the direction Cloud had disappeared in. It didn't take long to find him, he was in the parking lot leaning against the side of his car. He looked extremely unhappy.

"Want to go to the Seventh Heaven?" Quistis asked him.

He nodded. "He said he needed to come back again tomorrow."

Quistis shrugged. "Look on the bright side at least Cloud. You don't have to work tomorrow."

"No but Yuffie and Irvine are going to be, they never take these visits seriously." He countered.

"So will Sora, he likes Sora so I'm sure it'll be fine." Quistis tried to smooth out.

However this only caused Cloud to scowl further. Sora felt uncomfortable standing there, he wanted to say something to make Cloud feel better. He had no idea what to say however, he really didn't know the full reason why Cloud and Sephiroth hated each other. Nor did he know why the thought of Sora working with the owner seemed so distasteful to Cloud. So as much as Sora wanted to say something he just stood there, probably with some stupid look on his face.

"Come on I'll drive." Quistis said as she guided Cloud to another car. Sora guessed it was her own.

She indicated that Sora should sit in the back, he did so without any objection. The atmosphere in the car was tense but Quistis soldiered on, unwilling to let Clouds mood to slip any further. She tried to change the subject, talk about anything but the day they had all just experienced. Eventually the topic switched to the restaurant they were heading too.

"At least it will be nice to see Tifa hey Cloud." Quistis said, trying to remind Cloud of his other friends.

"We'll have to sit in the restaurant." Cloud said.

"We always sit in the lounge though." Quistis seemed confused.

Suddenly Sora wished he wasn't there. "I'm sorry." He said dejectedly from the back seat.

"Oh right, you're not old enough yet Sora are you?" Quistis said with a laugh. "How much longer are you doomed to minor land?"

"Not too long. My eighteenth is coming up soon. At the end of the month actually." Sora hadn't actually thought about how soon his birthday was coming up. Wakka and Tidus wouldn't be back in time to celebrate it with him. In fact it looked like he was going to have a very lonely birthday this year.

"Wow, that is soon. Are you excited?" Quistis asked, obviously latching onto a happier topic to talk about.

"Not really. My friends won't be back from camp in time." he explained.

"That sucks." Cloud said.

Sora suddenly realized what he had done, he had taken that happy topic and smashed it. "Nah it'll be fine, we'll do something when they get back. Besides they're not old enough yet to actually go to a bar or anything." He tried to amend the situation

"Really?" Quistis questioned. "You're really the oldest of all your friends?"

"Yup pretty much." Sora's mind wandered over a few people he knew older them himself. Mostly some of the jocks at school, Riku, and surprisingly Selphie. Her birthday should have just passed.

"That also sucks." Cloud added.

"I don't think I'm the go out and party every night kind of person anyway."

Quistis laughed a bit. "At least not yet. Everyone's got to let loose and party sometime."

"You don't seem like the type Quistis." Sora tried to imagine Quistis sitting in a bar, or dancing at a club. It just didn't seem to fit.

"Oh if you give her the right drink it works fine." Cloud said. "Anything really girlie in some sort of neon colour, that tastes like juice."

"Does such a thing exist?" Sora wondered.

"They're called Martini's Cloud. I bet if you tried one you'd like it." Quistis chided, as she pulled into the Seventh Heaven's parking lot.

Sora smiled as he followed the two into the restaurant. They were arguing about drink choices the whole way. At the very least it had distracted Cloud from the funk the day had put him in. He glanced at his watch, it was approaching five o'clock. He began to wonder if he should call his mother and let her know he wouldn't be home for dinner. He hadn't been on this train of thought for very long when he was distracted from it by Clouds busty friend Tifa.

She had grabbed him and pulled him into a tight hug, one he had not been expecting. "Oh it's Sora again!" She cried as she continued to smash Soras' face into her chest.

He tried to choke out some sort of greeting but found it difficult in his current predicament.

"Let him go Tifa, or you'll suffocate the poor boy." Quistis quipped.

Immediately she let him go and Sora pulled away, he could feel the heat radiating from his face.

She turned to face Cloud. "So how big of a table do you want?"

"Well there's only the three of us... unless you're planning to join." Cloud answered.

"What about Leon?" Tifa asked.

"What about Leon? He's not here."

"You think we should invite him?" Quistis asked Tifa.

"Sounds like after last night he at least owes Cloud dinner." Tifa gestured for one of the waitresses to come over. "I'll give him a call if you want, in the mean time Alice can get you a seat."

Alice, who Sora assumed to be the waitress, looked awfully familiar. She had long blonde hair and fair skin. It was when she smiled and gave Sora a wave that he recognized her. Alice had graduated his school just this spring. She was in his gym class for two years.

"Hi Alice." Sora said, offering her a wave of his own.

"Hey Sora good to see you again."

"Oh you guys know each other." Quistis said moving a little closer to Sora as they followed the blonde.

"Went to the same school." Sora offered.

Alice was one of those people that he knew, an acquaintance really. This was the first time he had ever said anything to her outside of class.

They took their seats and Alice handed them each a menu. After she spilled out the days specials, she left them to mull over their menus. Even though everyone had taken a menu no one had opened it, Sora followed suit. Sitting their awkwardly with his hands clasped in his lap.

"Figures Tifa would be the one to call Leon." Cloud said, his voice still a bit sullen.

"So are you going to tell us why Leon owes you dinner or not?" Quistis asked.

Sora remembered Tifa and Cloud mentioning this Leon character last time he was here. Obviously he was a good friend of Clouds, naturally Sora was curious.

"He called me up late last night, guess Seifer showed up and they fought." Cloud explained.

Quistis shrugged. "So those two fight all the time."

"This time it ran into property damage. Seifer trashed the kitchen sink, there was water everywhere. Leon called me up after he threw Seifer out. I went and helped with some repairs. Stayed there pretty late and ended up sleeping in this morning."

"So that's why you were late." Sora chimed in. He may not know the characters in the play but he could at least follow along.

Cloud nodded.

"Is that what you told Sephiroth?" Quistis asked, bringing her hand to her mouth as if she were shocked.

"Nope. I told him Arieth insisted on making breakfast and I just couldn't say no."

Sora was a little confused. Why would Cloud tell such a lie, particularly bringing in his ex like that. He knew that it was a sensitive subject for Cloud.

Quistis sighed dramatically. "You still haven't told him about Arieth?"

"Don't ever plan to." Cloud flipped through his menu distractedly. "It helps to keep him at a distance."

"I didn't think he was so bad." Sora interjected.

"He's just using you." Cloud commented.

To put it plainly, Sora just didn't get it. He tried to run over the facts in his head. Cloud and Sephiroth just didn't get along, Cloud was willing to bring up something that hurt him just to keep the man away from him, and he seemed to like Sora. He just couldn't figure out how he could be used.

"Cloud you don't know that. Everybody likes Sora, so Sephiroth is just one of them." Quistis tried to rationalize.

Sora was glad that at least Quistis seemed to be on his side. He did see a contradiction with her statement though. "I wouldn't say everyone likes me."

"Oh Sora don't be so modest. I can say for a fact that at the very least everyone at the shop likes you. Even Sephiroth and that's saying something." Quistis said.

Cloud snorted. "I can't wait till he gets his over paid ass out of here."

"Well we're stuck with him for at least one more day. Just be glad you're not going to be there tomorrow." Quistis said, trying to smooth over the bad mood Cloud seemed to be making for himself.

The table fell silent. Sora felt a little awkward, he tried to hide himself behind his menu. He played with the corner of one page and stared at the words but wasn't really taking anything in. Thankfully the silence was broken when Tifa approached them.

"Gee guys all the hard partying is disturbing all the other customers keep it down." She said, obviously sensing the tension.

"Haha Tifa you're so funny." Cloud said.

"I know, you look awful Cloud." She looked concerned, she even put one hand onto his forehead.

"He's not sick Tifa. Just had a bad day is all." Quistis answered for the blonde male.

"Yeah, yeah whatever. Hey I called Leon, he said he'd be here soon. Wasn't too far away I guess."

"Hopefully he was looking into what insurance would be able to replace." Cloud said folding his menu back up.

"How long did it take you guys to get the water off anyway?" Tifa asked as she took a seat next to Cloud at the table.

"A while, the pipe broke past the shut off valve so we had to get someone to turn the water off to the whole building."

"I'm guessing that didn't go over too well with the neighbours." Quistis said, laughing a bit. "Not like he had a good relationship with them in the first place."

"He really should just get his locks changed if he's serious about getting rid of Seifer." Tifa said.

"I agree, he really needs to take action." Quistis concurred.

"He doesn't sound very nice." Sora added, doing his best to keep up with the conversation.

"Seifer's a bad seed. I told Leon right when he met him that he should never have gotten involved with him." Cloud said moodily.

"That's funny Cloud seeing as he's known Seifer longer then he's known you." Quistis said with a laugh.

"Point is... I objected to him."

"There's Leon now." Tifa said waving at the entrance. "I would suggest changing the subject now."

Sora resisted the urge to turn around in his seat to get a look at Clouds friend. He was more then a little curious. Tifa stood when the tall brunette man walked up to the table, and offered him her seat.

"Hey Leon." Cloud said. Still as sullen as he was before, clearly his friends presence wasn't enough to cheer him up.

"Hiya Leon." Quistis said cheerily.

"I'll go get Alice to grab you guys some drinks." Tifa said before she disappeared.

"Leon, this is Sora." Quistis said gesturing to the boy next to her, once it was obvious that Cloud wasn't going to make the introduction. "He's the new kid at work."

Sora noticed the look Cloud cast at Leon when Quistis made the introduction. He did his best to ignore it when he shook Leon's hand. However hard he tried clearly it wasn't enough. Cloud looked suspicious almost. He really didn't know what to think of it, but it passed quickly enough.

"So this is the Sora that Clouds been talking about so much." Leon said, looking Sora up and down.

"The one and only." Quisits said.

Sora swallowed nervously. Cloud talked about him? "Well I hope it's been good things."

"Nothing but."

Alice suddenly showed up then with a tray full of drinks. Sora was glad for the distraction. "Hello again Alice."

"Hello yourself Sora." She said smiling as she served the drinks.

Sora tried for some small talk, Leon seemed to be talking quietly to Cloud and Quistis seemed happy enough sipping at her coke. "So... um, how have things been since school?"

"Oh nice enough I guess. College is going to cost way more then I thought however." She held the tray at her side and fidgeted with the lace on her apron. "I'm going to have to take a year off and save up for it."

"That's not that bad, you'll be able to rest your brain for a year." Sora said, trying to find an upside to a situation that she was plainly not comfortable with.

She smiled a bit. "You've got a point Sora. Well I best be getting to the rest of my tables, I'm aiming for high tips tonight."

"Alright." Sora said smiling at the girl as she turned and walked away, her blue skirt swishing behind her.

"I never knew you were so good with girls Sora." Quistis said smiling wistfully at him.

"Well you know." He was embarrassed. "It's just small talk."

"True enough." She agreed.

"She's a little presumptuous don't you think?" Cloud said from his corner of the table.

"What do you mean?" Sora asked taken aback.

"Saying that she's wanting good tips and not even asking if we were ready to order." He answered.

Sora frowned, Cloud seemed to be acting unusually harsh.

Leon gripped the bridge of his nose between his index finger and his thumb. "Well are you ready to order?"

"No you just got here." Cloud answered.

Quistis shook her head, Sora frowned again.

"Well then there isn't a problem."

"Besides Cloud. Sora knows her she'll be sure to give us lots of good service." Quistis said, trying yet again to smooth over the situation.

"What crawled up your ass and died today. You weren't this grumpy last night." Leon asked.

"None of your business."

Sora spotted Quistis mouthing the word 'Sephiroth'. Obviously Leon was close enough to know what that meant.

Immediately Leon frowned. Sora noticed how the expression wrinkled the scar that ran between his eyes."Why do you let him get to you. Arieth is in the past now so why not just roll with it and have fun."

"I don't want to have fun!" Cloud suddenly roared. Slamming his hand down on the table, sending his drink flying.

Sora jumped, he had not been expecting such a violet reaction. Cloud stormed away from the table, Leon rolled his eyes and followed after him. Quistis did her best to sop up the soda, the victim of Clouds temper tantrum.

Sora hadn't realized how tense he was until Quistis put a hand on his shoulder. He jumped again.

"It'll be alright Sora. Believe me I know it sounds a bit crazy but Clouds always like this when Sephiroth comes around. They've got some sort of history together. I don't know it, in fact I don't think anyone at the store knows it. As far as I can figure the only people who know what happened with Cloud and Sephiroth are Tifa and Leon." She smiled, Sora thought she must be trying to make it reassuring, he didn't think it helped much. "He tries too hard, Cloud just doesn't know how to roll with the punches. And don't you take any offence to how Cloud reacts to you and Sephiroth. I think he's just jealous that the two of you get along so well."

"No... I don't think that's it." Sora couldn't explain it, he knew it was something deeper then that.

"No?"

Sora didn't answer, the table was silent. Quistis refocused her attention back to the mess on the table. Tifa appeared with a damp cloth and helped her.

The brunette girl smiled at Sora. "Don't you worry your spiky little head about Cloud. He's a little boy trapped in a socially inept mans body."

Sora smiled a little bit at Tifas' description of his boss. "I'll be right back, I've just got to make a phone call real quick."

"Don't take too long I was going to bring a plate of nachos over before Cloud and Leon got back." Tifa said waving him off.

Sora nodded. Nachos sounded really good right now. He quickly slipped out the front door, where he would be away from the chatter of the late afternoon restaurant patrons. He could see Cloud and Leon walking slowly away from the building along the sidewalk. He really hoped that Leon would be able to talk the hot headed blonde down. Turning his back on the two he pulled out his phone and called his mother. He knew she would be worried if he didn't come home in time.

When he had completed his call neither Leon or Cloud were in sight. He turned and went back into the restaurant knowing that there really wasn't anything he could do about it. He could just hope that Leon would be able to calm Cloud down enough that they could salvage the rest of the evening.

Back at the table Tifa and Quistis were enjoying the plate of nachos that Tifa had mentioned. He sat down and helped himself to a chip, eating despite the state of knots his stomach had twisted itself up into.

"Help yourself Sora." Tifa said with a laugh.

"Sorry they just looked so good." Sora said around his full mouth.

Quistis laughed at his bad manners. "Don't worry about it, it's a big plate we couldn't finish it by ourselves anyway."

"You didn't want to wait for Cloud and Leon to get back?" Sora asked as he grabbed another chip, making sure to take a generous helping of sour cream as well.

"No, Leon probably wouldn't eat much of it anyway. Plus it'll be good punishment for Cloud. He's got to get a hold of himself and his little temper tantrums." Quistis said, Sora could just imagine the lecture Cloud was going to get if he ever came back.

"Don't be surprised if he wants to drive you home tonight Sora." Tifa said as she tried to pull a single chip away that didn't want to be removed from it's cheesy friends.

"Hmm?"

"He'll probably want to explain things to you. Or something. Honestly Sora you wouldn't believe how concerned he is with what you might think of him." Tifa said, finally giving up on the chip and taking it and it's fellows along. She shoved them all into her mouth.

Sora saw Quistis roll her eyes.

"Why would he care what I think." Sora mused. He had never experienced anyone caring that much about what he of all people would think.

"Who knows." Quistis answered.

He took a moment to take in all the people around him. They were all concerned about their friend. Leon who took the time to follow the blonde out of the restaurant and had enough patience to try and deal with his... whatever that was. Tifa, his long time friend who was trying her best to shrug off the incident. Quistis, who seemed harsh but was really looking out for his best interests. Sora didn't belong here with these people, he should be with kids his own age. He should be concerned with the last blitz match, not someone else's twisted past. He could see Alice over Tifas shoulder and she served another table, even she had more right to be here then he did.

"I should go." He said, feeling guilty for intruding on such close friends.

"What? why?" Quistis said slamming her drink down onto the table just a touch to hard.

"You should stay, Cloud'll flip if you're not here when he gets back." Tifa pointed out.

"If he was so concerned with me being here, he wouldn't have left in the first place." He felt like such a whiny brat.

"So tell him that." Quistis said, giving him a stern look. "Next time you're alone with him. Make sure he knows you feel that way."

"Wha- I-." His argument had been taken away from him, these two obviously knew something he didn't. He buried his head into his arms. "This would be so much easier if I knew what was going on."

"Don't we all wish that." Tifa said, helping herself to another chip.

Sora looked at her over his arm, analysing her movements.

"Truth be told, I don't think he's told anyone the real story. The only people who know the whole story is Cloud and Arieth." Tifa continued as she rotated her chip over and over so that the melted cheese that dripped off of it formed a cocoon of melted cheesy goodness.

"His Ex? She has something to do with Sephiroth?"

"Well not exactly." Quistis interjected. "But they were still going out when it started, he used to tell her everything. They had no secrets."

Sora righted himself. "Relationships sound way to complicated."

"They can be." Quistis agreed. "But then so is everything else."

"You've got a point their Quisty." Tifa agreed. "Hey look who's back."

Sora looked over his shoulder, as did Quistis. Leon and Cloud were making there way back to the table. Cloud didn't look completely unhappy, though he didn't look pleased either. He sat back down across from Sora and Leon pulled up another chair.

"Geeze you ate all the nachos without us." Cloud complained as he pulled a few of the larger crumbs off of the plate.

"Sora helped us." Tifa said happily.

This earned Sora a scowl from Cloud.

"Hey Tifa ate most of them." Sora defended.

"Well at least that means we can move onto dinner then." Leon pointed out.

"Actually after all those chips I'm not all that hungry anymore." Quistis pointed out.

Tifa smiled and laughed at Quistis' tease.

"Switch seats with me Tifa." Leon requested.

"What for?"

"So that we can order something to share since you lot seem to have helped yourselves." He pointed out.

"Fine I suppose." Tifa said as she abandoned her chair.

Leon took his seat next to Cloud and the two of them perused the menu. Fifteen minutes later Alice brought a platter over, covered in Chicken Wings, Calamari, Pork ribs, and chopped raw veggies. Sora eyed the plate hungrily, he really didn't have that many of the chips. Thankfully the tense atmosphere from earlier seemed to have dissipated. They were able to carry out a normal conversation without anyone having to raise there voice.

Just as Sora was considering having a look at the menu Leon offered him some of the chicken wings. Which he accepted gratefully. Cloud was very sure however that neither of the girls would be allowed any. That didn't stop Tifa however from stealing a few of the baby carrots when he wasn't looking. And despite Clouds early qualms about the service that Alice might be able to provide she proved herself quite capable.

Eventually the evening wore into night and they all went their separate ways. As the girls had predicted Cloud offered Sora a ride home. And even though the store, and the parking lot where Clouds car was, was within walking distance Leon drove them there. Which naturally turned into another conversation before the final farewells could be spoken.

"So if you're not working tomorrow what are you doing?" Leon asked Cloud as they all crawled out of the car.

"Anything to keep me busy I guess." Cloud answered.

"So then you have something planned?" Leon pried for more information.

"No... I guess that's the problem."

"You could help my mom weed the garden!" Sora offered. "She's been bugging me to do it all week."

Cloud laughed. "I don't think she'd want me doing that."

"She wouldn't have any plants left, like Cloud knows the difference between a flower and a weed." Leon amended.

"Hey don't go too far there, don't forget how much time I used to spend around flowers." Cloud defended.

"As if you were paying any attention to that."

Cloud scowled at his friend, and went and unlocked his own car.

"I'm sure Cloud would do just fine weeding." Sora said trying to defend Cloud and redirect what could possibly turn into another Cloud meltdown. It seemed to work, he saw a smile ghost across Clouds face briefly.

"Well Cloud if you're not busy... er weeding. You can help me out tomorrow. I've got a bunch of stuff to go through, hopefully not too much of it is water damaged."

"Yeah I suppose I could swing that."

"Good. I'll see you tomorrow." Leon said as he climbed back into his car.

He waved at them before pulling out of the parking lot. Sora waved back, a smile on his face. He was just hoping now that he'd be able to continue smiling during the trip home.

"Well shall we?" Cloud said starting up his own car.

Sora jumped into the passenger seat and threw his lunch bag and jacket into the back. They peeled out of the parking lot at a speed that was faster then Cloud usually drove. Sora guessed that he still wasn't in the best mood. The ride was silent most of the way, Sora had to tried to start up some talk but gave up when it was apparent he wasn't going to get much out of his boss.

In fact Cloud didn't say anything until they were only a few blocks from Soras house.

"I'm sorry about today."

Sora smiled, trying to reassure the other. "There's nothing to be sorry about."

"I'm sorry about the way I acted. I know you don't know very much about Sephiroth and the way he is, I should have warned you."

"The way he is? He didn't to anything strange." The smile quickly faded from Soras face.

"He's using you. He'll do anything to get under my skin after what happened. If I hadn't of acted like I did when I came in he'd probably just think you were a good worker."

"But he does think I'm a good worker."

"He's a manipulative person, you don't know him like I do. He sees people as tools, he pays attention only to find out how to use people to further himself." Cloud clenched his hands on the steering wheel his knuckles turning white. "He's selfish. Only thinks of himself. He-"

"Cloud!" Sora was scared. "Calm down everything is okay."

They stopped at the curb in front of Soras' house. Cloud threw the car into park and immediately put his head down onto the steering wheel, still gripping it tightly in his hands.

It was quiet, Sora was afraid to say anything more and Cloud seemed unwilling. The gentle rumble of the engine was the only thing brave enough to break the silence. Sora bit his lower lip, uncertain of what he should do. He didn't want to leave Cloud like this, he wasn't in any condition to drive. But he didn't know what to say.

Thankfully Cloud was the one to break the silence.

"I really wish I could explain to you why this is so hard... I want to... but it hurts, and I'm afraid." He spoke barely more then a whisper.

Part of Sora wished that he had a Wakka small enough to fit into his pocket. Then he'd always have the boy to look to for advice. What to say.

"You don't have to explain anything. It's fine."

"No!" Cloud pulled one hand up, formed a fist and slammed it back down onto the steering wheel.

Sora jumped.

"Sorry."

"It's okay." Sora wanted to leave. Right now he wanted out of the car and into his home, warm and secure in his bed. "I guess I should go."

He leaned over the seat to grab his things from the back, the creak of the leather seats audible over the engine. Sora had barely righted himself in his seat when Cloud suddenly reached out and grabbed him by the wrist.

"Wait! I want to tell you everything."

* * *

Author Notes: What a horrible person I am, leaving it at that. Actually if I were to keep going this chapter would end up way too long. Believe it or not this is already the longest chapter I've written yet. So look forward to more new stuff in the next chapter again.

Okay Tidbit... what should I say this time. Hmm, I suppose one of the biggest changes I've made is the pacing of events. Originally chapter 5 was Sora's birthday. It was also very awkward, full of point of view changes and flashbacks. Actually that's something I'm going to have to figure out how to fix up before I get to it. Haha. Things are going to be slowed down a bit, hopefully it'll come off more natural. Next chapter might be like this one with all new content... I can guarantee a good part of it will be for sure. As well I'm going to be away for a couple of weeks with no computer access so the next update might be a little late. I'll do my best to get it up as soon as possible.

Well anyway as usual this is where I beg for reviews. Drop me a line and let me know what you think. Were you excited about me adding Sephiroth?


	6. Chapter 6

RE: You Could be the Reason

Chapter Six

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Disclaimer: I do not own any of the rights towards Kingdom Hearts or it's characters. The plot is mine though.

Author Notes: Sorry this is late... I'm not as happy with this chapter. Just need to transition into somethings, bear with me for the moment.

* * *

Okay so I had the strangest day at work, what with the owner coming in and everyone acting all crazy about it. I had been warned, but obviously not nearly enough. No one told me that Cloud would have a freaking meltdown about it. So the strange day at work turned into an even stranger night out with some co-workers. Through all of that somehow I ended up here, in Clouds car. He won't let me leave, he says he wants to tell me everything... but does he really mean it?

* * *

Sora froze, looking into Clouds eyes to see if he was joking or not. He looked serious, his eyes didn't waver and his jaw was set. Was he actually serious? There had been people waiting forever for Cloud to spill the beans. Sora had barely known him for a few weeks, maybe almost a month, and here he was wanting to confess everything. Sora still had one hand on the door handle the other was trapped in Clouds fist. Slowly Sora let go of the handle and relaxed back into his seat.

"What do you mean by that Cloud?" Sora questioned he still didn't believe the situation.

"I mean I want to tell you about everything. Sephiroth, Arieth, You, everything!" Cloud burst out, his grip around Soras' wrist tightening a fraction.

"Please Cloud you're hurting me!" Sora was afraid now. Cloud had been off balance all day and he never told anyone about his secrets. Was he going to spill everything then kill Sora and throw him into the ocean? He didn't want to die.

His thoughts didn't stay on that path very long before Cloud let go and apologized quickly. It seemed that Cloud wasn't actually going to say anything until Sora okayed it. Sora looked up and down his dark street quickly. It wasn't that late, late enough for the children to be in bed and the summer sun to have set. Not yet late enough for the hoodlums that roamed the island at night to be out. Before Sora knew what he was doing he was nodding his head and giving Cloud assent to tell his story.

"Where do I start?" Cloud muttered softly to himself. Sora settled into the leather seat comfortably letting Cloud take his time to tell the story right.

"You know how I met Arieth already." Sora nodded remembering when Cloud had told him that. "I started at the Midnight Tree about the same time as a manager. I was at a big store on the mainland at the time. Arieth wanted to move out here, had been a dream of hers for years. She wanted to start her own shop on the islands. I always thought she'd go out to the big island and I'd be able to transfer there no problem. She found a place here though, up at the north coast. I guess I held her back for the first six months or so they didn't have a store here so I'd have to take a ferry to the big island everyday for work. I didn't want to do it but eventually when I saw how much she wanted to live her dream I gave in and we moved here. I travelled back and forth everyday, she didn't like how long I was away from home and I can't say I enjoyed it much either but she got to open her dream shop."

Cloud began to glare moodily at the steering wheel. "The shop in the big island is the flagship store out here. Sephiroths' main office is there, I had to work with him everyday. Honestly it wasn't bad at first, we got along really well, we clicked I guess. Eventually I built up the courage to ask him if he'd open a store here, or at least suggest it to the right person. He said that it wasn't possible... I didn't give up I kept dropping hints whenever I could, really started to push his limits. I was closing up shop one night when he first suggested it... He gave me a proposal, he could open a shop here in exchange for something..." Clouds voice grew weak, Sora knew he was talking about something he dearly regretted now. Sora offered him a sip of his water bottle that he hadn't touched on his break. Cloud took it with thanks.

"You know you don't have to keep going..." Sora tried. "You can finish another time when you feel more up to it."

Cloud shook his head. "If I don't say this now I won't be able too." After a few deep breathes he continued. "He told me that if I ... if I slept with him he'd think about it. I was so stupid, I mean I didn't take him up on it right away I thought about it for a long time. I knew though... it would be the only way to get a store here... for her. I should have just found another job, I should have just quit but I was too stupid to think about that. Eventually I took him up on the offer." Sora watched as Clouds head dropped his chin resting on his chest and he slowly shook it back and forth. Eventually he continued. "Once wasn't enough he said he'd just think about it. Every chance he got he would remind me of our deal, and every time I would comply. I felt so guilty about it. I told her, I had to, to clear my conscience. Once the store was nearly finished I told her all about it, explained everything. She was mad of course. Threw me out. I had to stay with Leon and Seifer for two weeks. I was lucky though she took me back. After she made me swear I'd break it off and that I'd never do anything like that ever again. I was more then happy to agree. Needless to say Sephiroth wasn't exactly gleeful about it, but I swore I wouldn't tell anyone about it so he let it go. I got to keep my store. He could have ruined me, fired me, or demoted me, or transferred me anywhere else so I guess I have to be grateful for that much.

"What happened after was completely my fault. I was stupid and weak, I broke her heart again. A year later, out of my own weakness I slept with him again... No reason he wasn't blackmailing me, he wasn't using me, I just did it... because I wanted too. Obviously she didn't forgive me a second time. This time I stayed with Tifa until I could find my own place. I didn't tell her anything, I didn't even tell Leon but I think he was able to piece it together. That was half a year ago. Life has been horrible since then. I live in this crappy apartment downtown, my neighbours argue every night. I have to deal with Yuffie just about everyday at work, she won't leave me alone about anything. Always pestering me to tell her. Leon acts all stern around me, probably pissed I didn't go to him when we broke up. Before you showed up Sora I was living in a black hole. That day you showed up with your resume I was ready to just throw it into the shredder with everyone else's. Something stopped me though and instead I asked you for lunch. That's not like me."

Cloud swept his bangs out of his face with one hand and held them into place. He had a smile on his face and a wild look in his eyes. Sora was scared again. "Cloud I-"

"No not yet I'm not done." Cloud collapsed on top of his steering wheel. "I don't know what possessed me to do that, that day. But I'm glad I did. The days after that I couldn't stop thinking about you. The kid I had awkwardly forced into a lunch date. You made life just a little bit brighter I think." He laughed weakly here. "I told Leon about it he thought I had cracked. Tifa thought it was cute. Quistis figured it would be good for me to have someone younger around to cheer things up a bit. I don't think she'd like my thoughts very much though. She wouldn't agree with me lusting after someone so young after all."

Sora gulped, his throat suddenly feeling constricted. Was Cloud confessing?

"I'm sorry. You probably feel awkward now. I think Sephiroth may have worn off on me a bit too much."

"N-no I'm glad that I was able to help." True he felt awkward now, what was he supposed to say now. Was it appropriate to say that he didn't mind much since he sorta had a crush on him anyway.

"Looking back on it I can't believe I had been in such a funk and yet somehow you pulled me out of it. You didn't even really do anything. Just a cute kid that couldn't even get his own name right."

"Of course you had to remind me of that." Sora said with a grimace.

"Sorry, but it was cute."

"Just don't make it a regular story you pass around." Sora chided. He'd hate to think of what would happen if certain people at school got their hands on that tid-bit of information.

"It's getting late." Cloud pointed out. Indeed the time on the stereo stated that it was past midnight. "I should let you go."

Sora nodded and grabbed his things again. Before he left the car however he turned back to the blonde. "Cloud... I'm really happy if I did help you, in anyway."

Cloud smiled. "Thanks Sora."

Sora slipped into his house, shutting the door quietly behind him, just incase his mother was asleep. It turned out she wasn't, she was in the kitchen sipping tea with just one dim lamp on in the living room. She startled him. "Sora is that you?"

"Mom!" He peaked his head into the room, taking in the sight of her sitting at the dark table. "What are you doing sitting in the dark?"

"Couldn't sleep I guess. Want some tea?" She offered.

"No I think I'm going to get to bed, I've got to work tomorrow." He tried to leave but she restrained him, calling him back with his name.

"You were sitting out there for a long time." She pointed out, gazing at him above the rim of her mug.

"Oh yeah I guess we were just talking."

"Were you with Cloud?"

Sora rubbed his arm nervously, it wasn't like he was with some girl.

"Yeah, we were just talking about stuff."

"Mmm, alright you'd better get to bed then." She said dismissing him.

He looked over his shoulder as he was heading up the stairs for bed, why was his mom acting so weird. He ignored it and went and got ready for bed. Wondering how well he'd be able to sleep now that he had all this new information to go over.

Just as he thought, sleep did not come to him easily that night. He lay awake for hours playing the scene in the car over and over in his head. The way Cloud hid his face most of the time, was he ashamed? That was silly of course he was ashamed of the things he did. But that confession, the strange roundabout route he took to say it. It was there for sure though. He had said he lusted after Sora. Did he feel the same way about Cloud? He tried to figure that out, he knew he had a crush but did it go that far. What about Riku? Did he really have a crush on Riku too? What happened to him to make him start noticing all these guys? What happened to the girls he used to like? The more he thought about it, the further his thoughts got away from the conversation in the car. Only to have him pull it back, and play it all over again. He wasn't sure when, at what ungodly hour in the morning, he finally fell into an unsettled sleep.

* * *

He had never been more grateful for an afternoon shift as he was the next day. Sora crawled out of bed late, blinking wearily at his alarm clock, which for the record had failed to go off. He read the numbers, almost twelve thirty. He tried to bury his head back into his pillows knowing it was useless to do so. His mother would more then likely be showing up at his door soon to see why he wasn't up yet. Why couldn't today be his day off instead. He groaned when as he had predicted, Ann began knocking on the door. A gentle tap, but loud enough for him to hear clearly. Tentatively she opened the door poking her head into the room.

"Sora?" She said softly.

He grunted a response.

"Hey you should be getting up don't you have to work today?" She asked as she dared to come a little closer, entering the room fully.

"Mmh." He replied from under his pillow.

"Come on sleepy head, I know you didn't sleep well. I heard you tossing and turning all night, but you've got to get up for work." She said as she began to pull at his covers.

"Okay, okay..." He wearily pulled himself and rested his weight on his elbows. Blinking slowly at her.

Ann laughed at the disgruntled look on her sons face. "Come on get dressed I'll make you some breakfast and some coffee. If you behave I may even lend you the car today."

This woke Sora up more effectively. She rarely offered the car up to him, usually he got it after some serious begging. "Really?"

"Yes but only if you're showered and downstairs in fifteen minutes." She set the conditions and left him alone in the room.

As soon as the door was shut, he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and pulled himself out from under the covers. Grabbing some work clothes and a fresh towel before he headed for a shower. The shower was able to wake him up more effectively, he felt refreshed afterward. Though since he had taken longer then he had originally thought he was starting to push the fifteen minute time limit.

"Taking every minute you can hey?" Ann asked when he finally arrived in the kitchen.

"Sorry." He said with a yawn. The shower may have woke him up a bit, but it did nothing to combat the terrible sleep he had gotten the previous night.

"Here I made some toast for you." She said as she passed him a slice of peanut butter toast. "Eat up quick or you're going to end up late."

Sora smiled at his mothers thoughtfulness. What would he do without her? He ate up quickly and gave her a kiss as he took the car keys from her. He would surely be nothing but a lost little boy without her. "Thanks Mom."

She waved him away, shutting the door before he got to the car. She would let him drive it occasionally but she said that he still made her nervous every time he did. It still beat taking the bus, despite how dangerous she seemed to think it was. He pulled out of the driveway and went past the old school. At the back of his head he wished that he was passing Riku and Kairi now. They'd be powerless against him now. Not that he would try to run them over or anything like that. No he'd be immune to their taunts, all he had to do was roll the windows up and turn his music up. He'd be impervious to Riku's hits, punches, kicks. They'd never be able to keep up with him. All of this was running in the back of his head as he made his way to work.

Sephiroth would be there again. Would he act more cautiously around the man, now that he had heard Clouds warning. He still couldn't believe Cloud was capable of such acts. The butterflies started in his stomach as soon as the building was within sight. He tried to think back to how useless Riku and Kairi would be if he saw them now. That crumbled though. Sephiroth was a much more powerful man, and a lot more imposing. Not to mention, Sora had no idea when he'd see his classmates again, he knew where Sephiroth was and what he was expecting.

No! Sora argued with himself as he parked his mothers car. He didn't know what was expected of him, other then work. He was always capable of saying no to the man. If he did ever propose anything. He still wondered if he would actually go so far as to use Sora to hurt Cloud. Sora took a deep breath before he got out of the car. He decided then that he wouldn't let what Cloud had said to him the night before bother him. After all nothing went wrong yesterday, other then Clouds little melt down or whatever that was. He wasn't even going to be here today, he wouldn't have to worry about Cloud in reality. Right Sora was on top of things.

Inside of the store was Yuffie and Irvine. Yuffie appeared to be dancing.

"Um... Yuffie. What are you doing?" Sora asked, he didn't put it past the girl to be doing something like that.

"Dancing what's it look like. I can't help it I'm so happy!" She exclaimed as she made some sort of pirouetting leap.

Irvine chuckled lightly. "She's been like this all day, even though the boss is here."

"Do you think that's very smart?" Sora asked as he watched her dance around the store.

"He can't complain as long as I'm doing my work. Besides I'm so happy!"

"She keeps saying that." Irvine informed Sora. "She hasn't said why she's happy though."

"Ah." Sora acknowledged. He had just noticed the time, he really was running late this morning, he only had a couple of minutes before his shift started. Quickly he rushed into the back, making note to ask why she was so happy when he got back.

Luck it seemed was not with him that day however. Sephiroth was standing in the back room. He had a bundle of papers that were stapled together at one corner, he seemed to be reading them intently.

"Oh... er." Sora started lamely, nerves attacking him once more. "Hi."

"Afternoon Sora." He greeted calmly.

"Um... I've got to start soon. I'd better not waste time." Sora said, trying to think of an excuse to get away as quickly as possible.

"Actually could I have a quick word with you."

Sora's blood froze, was this what he was dreading?

"Sure." He hoped he sounded nonchalant.

"I understand that there was a bit of a gathering last night." Sephiroth started.

Sora swallowed nervously, there was nothing saying they couldn't all get together as friends was there? "Yeah I guess so."

"Where you there?"

Sora nodded. Was he to be scolded or worse.

"Cloud was there as well correct?" He asked finally bringing the papers he was holding down away from his face.

"Yes he was."

"Did he say anything?"

That could only mean what Cloud had told him, what had kept him up all night. He wasn't supposed to let Sephiroth know about that right? He couldn't imagine anything good coming from it.

"Say anything about what sir?"

Sephiroth rose one eyebrow but didn't say anything right away he seemed to be thinking his response over. Probably trying to figure out if Sora was lying,. As far as Sora was concerned. He was a terrible liar.

"Anything about his dour mood." Sephiroth clarified.

"Well no." Sora outright lied. "Um... some of his friends seemed to have some sort of idea though. I guess they've known him longer right."

Sora laughed nervously. He hadn't given him anything to call him on had he.

"I suppose." Sephiroth brought the papers back to his face. "You ought to go help the others out."

"Right away." He had never been so happy to get out of anyone's presence before. Including his mad science teacher Mr. Vexen.

Back out on the sales floor, Yuffie had ceased to dance. Both Yuffie and Irvine stopped what they had been doing to stare at Sora as he came out. It made the boy feel nervous.

"What?" He asked. "Do I have something on my face?"

"Your ten minutes late." Yuffie informed him.

"Sorry Sephiroth wanted to talk to me." He informed the other two employees.

Irvine gave him a little smile, it looked painful. "I had a feeling that's what he was doing hiding out back there."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you see he doesn't really... what's the way to put it..."

"Trust us." Yuffie supplied.

"Yeah that works. He doesn't usually keep us too far out of his sight, but for the last half hour or so he's been hiding out back there."

"He wasn't too hard on you was he?" Yuffie asked looking concerned.

"No... it was fine." Sora laughed nervously. "Honestly he's not that bad..."

"Just wait, he'll show his true form to you soon enough." Irvine warned.

"I still think you're being kinda paranoid. Yuffie if you were so concerned about Sephiroth hanging around the back room why were you dancing around before." Sora asked.

"Excellent question Sora. Why don't you enlighten us Yuffie." Irvine said, agreeing with Sora.

"I told you before I was dancing because I was happy!" She said in a sing song voice.

"Yes but why were you so happy." Irvine asked, laughing.

"It was something a little birdie told me this morning." She said continuing in her sing song.

"Something a little birdie told you?" Sora questioned.

Irving rose an eyebrow. "Hmm... who could this little birdie be? Is it someone I know?"

"Maaaaaaybe!"

Sora laughed at the girls attitude. "Okay so that would be a yes."

"From work or not?" Irvine continued.

"That's cheating." Yuffie complained.

"So someone from work, easy narrows it down to two people. Watch and learn Sora." Irvine said. His demeanour taking on something more akin to a history professor. "If it's someone from work, and it being Yuffie means that our little birdie is either Rinoa, or Ms. Quistis. Now seeing as how Rinoa is still taking her summer courses and snaps at anyone who tries to distract her from anything that isn't civil engineering approved. That would lead me to believe that the little birdie is no other then Quistis."

"Right so then what did Quistis tell you Yuffie?" Sora asked, ignoring Irvines strange badinage.

The girl heaved a great sigh. "You know you guys sure can take the fun out of things."

"Yeah, yeah we get it. Come on spill the beans." Irvine said rolling his eyes.

She laughed softly. "Well I suppose I can tell you, since Sora's here now anyway. Quistis let it slip this morning. I know who's birthday is coming up!"

"Oh, no." There was no doubt in Sora's mind.

"Oh yes!" Yuffie said gleefully. "Very soon Sora's gonna be the big one eight."

"What?! Sora your going to be legal. Big step into the world." Irvine said throwing an arm around Sora's shoulders.

"Ha, yeah I suppose it is."

"You may be legal to fuck now, but soon you'll be legal to drink and fuck." Irvine said profoundly.

"Yeah, real smooth there Irvine." Yuffie said dryly. "At least we know what you do on your days off now."

Sora laughed. "I suppose it can be said that you don't like to keep secrets."

"Oh be quite you two. Nothing wrong with a little drunken bump and grind every now and then." Irvine bantered back. "Just you wait Sora you're gonna love it."

"Please Irvine, Sora's not as vulgar as you. I doubt he'd ever be so dumb. Honestly I'm surprised you haven't taken a he-she home yet."

"Oh don't jinx me!"

"Yeah I really don't think I could do that." Sora said nervously.

"Just incase though, you better make sure that when you go out to celebrate you've got someone with you who'll take care of you." Yuffie warned.

"I'm actually not doing anything. I'll probably just take it easy."

"What? No way Sora you gotta at least go out and party a little." Irvine argued.

"I'm going to mark it on the calendar." Yuffie started up her sing song voice again. "Then we can do a count down."

"You have to be kidding me." Sora said, watching Yuffie as she excitedly marked up the calendar.

"What are you three doing?" A voice interrupted them.

"Sir, we were just..." Yuffie tried to answer.

Irvine supplied the answer. "Safety meeting."

"Nice try. Get back to work." Sephiroth commanded.

"Right we're on it." Yuffie said leaving the calendar behind, her work had been completed anyway.

"I'm going to be heading out here, I'm sure I can trust all of you to get things done." He said looking at all of them in turn.

"Not a problem Sir. How could you not trust us." Irvine asked smiling.

"You'd be surprised. Sora make sure these two don't take the store down with them."

"Sure."

Sephiroth left, he had his jacket thrown over one arm, he waved at them through the window with the other. Sora watched him leave, relieved that he wasn't going to be drawing out his visit like he did the day before. Yesterday he wouldn't have minded, but after what Cloud had told him. Well he wasn't sure. He seemed nice enough, and Sora would have trusted him, despite what the others seemed to say about him. Yet with Clouds explanation he could see why he was being so nice to him. That he really was just wanting to use him to get under Clouds skin. Cloud had really slept with him?

"Geeze Sora he's gone. You afraid he's going to come back or something?" Irvine asked, noticing how Sora had stared at Sephiroths' retreating back.

"No sorry, spaced out I guess." He apologized.

"Whatever now we can get down to the serious business." Yuffie said, brushing off Soras odd behaviour.

"Right we've got less then a week to make plans." Irvine agreed.

"Plans for what?" Sora questioned.

"Your birthday dummy." Yuffie answered.

"No. Really I'm fine working things out on my own."

"Right that's why you've got nothing." Irvine chastised. "Now how many people do you want to invite?"

"I mean it guys I'm not going to do anything. I don't really want to. I'll go out when my other friends are old enough. I'm fine with that."

"You're such a party pooper Sora."

Sora had never been so relieved to hear the silver bell chime. The bell meant one thing, a distraction. He jumped at the chance to be rid of the two schemers. He kept himself with every customer that came into the store after that. Doing anything he could to keep the topic of his upcoming birthday.

* * *

The following day Yuffie took just about every opportunity she could to remind Sora of his upcoming birthday. Everything from asking him what kind of cake he preferred, to who he would invite if he could. He did his best to brush off any and all of her questions. He tried to keep as much distance between himself and the girl as possible. He spent most of his time near Rinoa who would chide the ninja girl for bothering Sora. He figured it was a safe place, turned out he was wrong. Rinoa was just as curious as Yuffie it seemed.

"You're absolutely serious about not wanting to do anything for your birthday?" She asked looking up from the papers she had scattered about on the counter.

Sora jumped slightly, not expecting the question from the girl who had previously been absorbed in her homework.

"Well it's just that things won't work out at the moment."

"'Cause your friends are away?" She asked leaning on one arm.

Sora nodded. "It's not like they don't care, they just can't make it. It's really not a big deal. I keep telling everyone that we'll just celebrate late."

"Quistis told me that it's bothering Cloud that you don't have anyone to celebrate with. Besides us that is."

He laughed nervously. "Why would Cloud care?"

"He cares about all of his employee's. He's worked really hard for all of us you know. Including you."

Sora thought back over what Cloud had told him, it was true the store wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for Cloud. "I'll just have to explain it to him too then. Just like I've explained to you, and to Yuffie, and to Irvine, and to everybody."

"No need to get so exasperated."

Sora was about to defend himself when he was interrupted by the tell a tale silver bell. In walked Zidane.

"Zidane! Hi!" He greeted happily.

"Hiya." He said with a wave.

"I'm glad your here. Yuffie's been driving me crazy all day, could you send her home early. Tell her we'll make the hours up on the weekend." Rinoa said.

"Well I'm happy to see you too." He said sarcastically.

"She's in the back pulling some product." Rinoa pointed out.

Zidane waved the girl off and disappeared into the back anyway.

"He looks happy to see you." Sora said happy that Zidane had been enough of a distraction to change the topic.

"Oh always." Rinoa said, her nose behind a book again.

Sora smiled, and returned to his work. It was quiet in the store with only a few customers here and there. Rinoa had the radio on very quietly, just enough to break absolute silence. If Yuffie existed for one reason it was to disturb the quiet. She burst from the back, the door slamming against the wall with a bang.

"Rinoaaaaa." She whined. "Why do I have to go home early, just because Zidane got here."

The other girl put her book down with a frown. "Yuffie please."

"No! Why do I have to suffer the hour cut."

"We talked about this earlier remember. I want you to cover on Saturday." Rinoa reminded.

Sora watched without saying anything. It wasn't his place to say anything anyway, one way or another. It must have been something they had talked about before Sora had come in. Yuffie seemed to remember after the reminder anyway.

"Yeah, yeah okay. I'll leave as soon as Zidane gets his lazy ass out here." She said, giving in.

"Thank you." Rinoa said, returning to her books.

Yuffie stood there a moment but seemed to have decided to continue pestering the other girl. "You know you're no fun anymore."

Rinoa sighed. "What are you talking about?"

"All you do anymore is study. I liked you more before you started taking that class." She complained.

"Please, Yuffie it's not a good time for this. I've got a test tomorrow and I'd really rather pass it."

"See!" She said dramatically, her voice rising in pitch.

A couple of customers jumped, not expecting the sudden volume increase. Sora apologized on her behalf and ushered the both into a fitting room.

"This is what I mean." Yuffie continued. "All you do is read and take notes. You haven't even contributed to our magazine collection in forever. What happened to the gossip? The drama? You don't even come out in the evenings with us anymore. Even Sora's joined in on that."

Finally Rinoa seemed to have had enough. She slammed her book down onto the counter and her voice became hard and cold. "Enough! Yuffie this is not a permanent thing, but it is important. Please just leave now. I don't care if Zidane is here or not just get out of my space!"

Yuffie was stunned into silence, even Sora was afraid to make any sudden movements. He had never heard her raise her voice before. She had always left the impression that she was a chatty warm girl. Guess she had some back bone as well. Yuffie turned sharply on her heal, she went directly for the entrance door. She didn't even bother to grab anything she might have brought with her. She left and vanished before Rinoa or Sora could do anything. Even the customers seemed cowed. Sora stood frozen watching the girl behind the counter. He heard the door from the back open slowly, he guessed it was Zidane. Rinoa wiped a few errant tears from her eyes.

"Rinoa?" Zidane asked softly. "Are you okay?"

The brunette nodded her head in an affirmative. "I'm fine, she just- she just gets under my skin sometimes."

Sora understood she wasn't sad, they were tears of frustration.

"Why don't you take your things into the back and chill down a bit." Zidane offered. "We'll keep an eye out for you."

She nodded and gathered her papers together, shoving them into her book. Sora wished he could say something to comfort the girl, but nothing came.

Once she was gone, Zidane appeared to relax. He let out a big breath and his shoulders slumped back down. Sora hadn't noticed it, but he had grown tense too.

"Geeze, it's scary when chicks fight hey Sora?" He said trying to ease the tension.

"You shouldn't say that." Sora scolded. After all there were still customers in the store, the majority of them female.

"Ah. Relax." Zidane said moving to Sora and throwing one arm around his shoulders.

Sora squawked and tried to get out of the grip but Zidane held him tight.

"They'll be back to normal before you know it." He ruffled the hair on Soras head before releasing him.

"I hope so." He hated to think of what it would be like working with the two girls if they held grudges against one another.

* * *

Zidane's prediction came true, by the end of the week both girls were back to normal. They both had even taken the time to add to the 'harass Sora about his birthday fund'. Everyone seemed to be taking jabs at Sora's reluctance about the upcoming date, closer then ever now. Even Zidane had told him how lucky he was that his eighteenth fell on a Saturday. Though neither girl was there the day before the big day. Sora was working a closing shift with Irvine. He felt rather melancholy that day, he had woke up feeling like that. The results of an unfortunate dream where he relived a past birthday, celebrated with all of his friends. Even Riku and Kairi.

His gloomy mood did serve one purpose. It kept Irvine at a distance. Sora threw himself into his work, glad that the rolling rack in the fitting rooms were full. If he kept his plate full the day would be over sooner.

It had been a tradition for Sora and Riku to celebrate their birthdays together. They did the same thing every year, this being the first to break that ritual. It was strange he hadn't thought of it sooner, since it was something the two of them had done even before Kairi had moved out to the islands. The day before each boys birthday they had always spent the night at each others houses. It had started back when Riku was turning six, and Soras' visit had turned into an all night thing. He never thought he'd miss something like that. Yet there he was moping about the store the day before his birthday. He wondered if Riku had even thought of his upcoming birthday. If Kairi had mentioned it. If either of them cared even a little.

It figured though he wouldn't be able to avoid his cowboy co-worker forever. The rush of customers had begun to slack an hour ago. It was usually busier on a Friday then the rest of the week. Though it was nearing dinner time and most people would rather be home by then. Irvine was able to leave the till and went to go help Sora put away the unwanted items.

"Something wrong?" Irvine asked first chance he could get.

"No, why?" Sora tried to sound nonchalant.

"Well for someone who's birthday is tomorrow you seem awfully down. Come on you should be gearing up for a party." He tried to do a dance, but ended up looking ridiculous with his arms over-full of clothing and trying to sway his hips around.

Sora did his best to repress a smile at his co-workers ridiculous antics. "Just because it's my birthday doesn't mean I should have to be cheerful."

"Well you do have plans to go out somewhere right?"

He sighed, not this again. "No for the last time I don't have any plans."

"Come on." He said dumping the arm load of clothes into a nearby bin. "How can all of your friends be gone? Where did they all go?"

"Wakka and Tidus are away at blitz camp." Sora explained. He tried to make it a bit more positive. "They both wished me a happy birthday on their last e-mails though."

"Wha--! And that's it! Two friends? Come on Sora, you seem like a real nice kid. You only know two kids?"

Sora felt a little hurt that Irvine automatically jumped to that conclusion, though when he thought back on it. It really did sound that way. "No. I know lots of people. Just not anyone close enough that would want to celebrate my birthday."

"Well I think you're just not trying hard enough." Irvine pointed out, but let the subject drop regardless.

Sora was glad for it. Hopefully once the weekend was said and done he could put all of this behind him. It would be great if everyone stopped bothering him about it.

It took the two of them a good two hours to get everything back together. Irvine had just started up another story about his high school days and Sora was just putting away the last of the odd ball items rejected by customers when the bell above the door chimed. Both Cloud and Quistis walked in. Sora glanced at the clock and noticed how close it was to closing time. What where they doing here now?

Cloud said hello to both Sora and Irvine before going into the back room. Quistis just clicked her tongue in disapproval, before she set about straightening a table to her standards.

Sora lent in closer to Irvine, so that she wouldn't overhear his question. "What are they doing here?"

"It's the end of the month. Cloud always comes in to grab some paper work, you know fiscal shit. Quistis likes to give the place a good head to toe cleaning too." He explained.

"Irvine?" Quistis said after she had pulled out the vacuum. "Could you help me with this?"

Irvine poked Sora in the back. "Why don't you help the little lady out Sora. I'll go see what Clouds up too."

As per usual he pawned the dirty work off on Sora, both he and Zidane had a bad habit of doing that. Even Yuffie joined in occasionally. He didn't mind though, Sora like to be busy.

"Need any help?" He asked her.

"I'm pretty sure I asked Irvine." She responded.

Sora shrugged. "He went to ask Cloud something. I think."

She bit her lip looking unhappy. "I really wish he would stop doing that. You shouldn't have to do his work for him."

"I don't mind really. What would you like me to do?"

She looked around the store. "I guess, if you really want to help out I'll get you to run the vacuum. I'll get started on dusting the mannequins."

Sora hadn't even started up the vacuum when Cloud and Irvine came back out.

"I'll give you a ride home if you want." Cloud offered. "Irvine can do what Quistis wanted him to do."

Sora surrendered the vacuum to the cowboy. He seemed reluctant but did it anyway since Cloud had told him otherwise.  
"I still have half an hour on my shift. We're supposed to close up the store." Sora objected, looking to Irvine.

"Don't worry about it, Quistis can handle it." Cloud said, brushing off the protest.

"It's not a problem, take off early Sora. I know you were wanting to help and that's what counts. Besides tomorrow's your birthday." Quistis said. She gave Sora a little shove toward Cloud.

"Go grab your things." Cloud commanded.

* * *

Sora had felt strange when they left the store, Cloud locked the door behind them. They were closed now anyway. The both clambered into Cloud car, and the embarked on the well known journey. This was the first time Sora had been in that car since Cloud had confessed everything. He tried not to think about what had been said. It had been enough for a couple nights of sleeplessness. It made him feel strange. He didn't want things to get awkward, he hadn't said anything to Cloud about it and Cloud hadn't said anything either. It worked out well that way.

When they arrived at Soras house they parked at the same place on the curb they had earlier in the week. It felt like it had been longer. Sora didn't want to linger, but Cloud began to talk.

"Irvine said you still haven't made plans for your birthday tomorrow." It wasn't a question, just a statement.

"Yeah, I suppose. It's not a big deal though, everyone's just over doing it." Cloud knew about the fight with Riku and Kairi, but he didn't want him to know he was so socially awkward. Apparently that must be what he was since no one had even contacted him about the day.

"So why don't I take you somewhere?" Cloud asked casually. His tone was light, conversational.

Sora didn't want to say. Here was the guy he had been secretly crushing on for the past month. The guy who said he had been lusting over him. That could mean anything right?

Cloud seemed to have picked up on Soras' reluctance. "I mean... if your Mom's okay with it. Leon could come too."

"I'm sure she wouldn't mind. You are supposed to be a responsible adult after all, and my boss on top of that." Wait, was he just accepting the invitation?  
"I know a good place to go." He added.

"If Leon's coming... okay." He hated to say it, but he felt better knowing that someone else was going to be there as well.

"Great. I'll give you a call before I come pick you up tomorrow."

"Yeah. I look forward to it." Sora said before leaving the car.

Neither of them said good-bye. Sora watched Cloud drive away from his front window.

* * *

Author Notes: Okay so this chapter turned out longer then I was expecting. Brought back the ending from way back in the original chapter 4. Tweaked of course.

There solved your cliff hanger! Who didn't see that coming though. As I said earlier I'm not as pleased with this chapter. I like the beginning, sort of. Well it's past. Next challenge is to resolve the mess that the original chapter 5 was. I'm not looking forward to having to fix all of the perspective switches and what not.

Anyway as usual leave a review please, let me know what you think. Did Clouds confession surprise you or not?


	7. Chapter 7

RE: You Could be the Reason

Chapter Seven

* * *

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the rights towards Kingdom Hearts or it's characters. The plot is mine though.

Author Notes: I'm sorry this chapter is so late, and so short. It gave me such a hard time, and I'm still not really pleased with it. Get ready for a chapter of whiny Sora!

* * *

Why is it whenever you don't want attention from anyone, that seems to be the time that they all look your way. Stupid me let it slip my birthday was coming up. Then no one would leave me alone about it. They made a count down, and they were all constantly talking about it. It's all added stress I don't really need right now. Even Cloud got in on it. I let him get away with it though, not sure why. He's supposed to be taking me out tonight. At least Leon'll be there too. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't at the very least, slightly nervous about this. Considering everything that's happened.

* * *

Sora awoke groggily the next morning, vaguely aware of pounding. It took him a few moments to realize that it was someone knocking on his door. He rolled over and tried to focus his eyes on the clock next to his bed. 6:05, the menacing red numbers proclaimed. What the hell did Ann want at this horrendous time of the morning. He heard her voice on the other side of the door, telling him to wake up. Then he realized what day it was. It was his birthday, he rolled over again and groaned. How nice it would be to sleep in, even just once on his birthday. This was part of another birthday tradition, just like how normally Riku would have spent the night over. Only he wasn't so fond of this one.

"Sora, hun. Wake up, it's your father he wants to wish you a happy birthday." Ann called through the door.

Sora didn't respond, he would be much happier just going back to sleep then getting up and having to talk to Sion of all people.

"Sora get up now I mean it. You hardly ever get to talk to your father and you're not going to blow this chance now." Ann warned.

Sora gave up, he knew there was no getting out of this now. Every year he got a call uncommonly early from his father, who he talked to seldom and saw even more rarely. He still hadn't got the hang of the time difference obviously. It may be three in the afternoon for him but it was hella early for Sora. He quickly wiped the sleep from his eyes and crawled out from under the covers. His mother was still standing in the hall. She smiled at him when he finally opened the door.

"Morning hun." She said happily before handing over the cordless phone in her hand.

Sora took the phone and held it to his ear.

"Morning Dad." He wanted to get the point across that it was early.

"Did I wake you up sport?" Sion had always called him that. Sora figured he was trying to sound more like an involved father in his son's life.

"Uh-huh. It's really early."

"Sorry about that I always forget that your clock is different from mine."

"Uh-huh."

Sora could hear shuffling coming through the phone. He was always nervous when he spoke to Sora, probably because it was so seldom. The birthday call, the Christmas call, and the Easter call. Sora only spoke to his father those three times a year. Any other minor holiday was marked by a card, usually filled out by his Sion's new wife. "So uh- Happy Birthday sport!"

"Thanks."

"Wow, you're like what sixteen now?" Sion said giving it a shot.

"No eighteen." Sora corrected.

"Wow, time sure does fly don't it."

"Yep. So how's Minnie?" It was customary for Sora to ask about his fathers new family.

"Oh she's great you know. You should see Pete now, he's grown like a weed." Pete was Sion's second son.

"Oh yeah he's got to be what six now?"

"Spot on." Sad, Sora knew the age of his half brother he had never met and yet his own father didn't know what birthday he was calling for.

"Yeah, I suppose."

"So eighteen now wow. Got any big plans?"

"I'm going out somewhere with a friend. Don't know where we're going yet though."

"Who're you going with? Your girlfriend?"

"I don't have a girlfriend Dad. He's someone I work with." He didn't exactly want to reveal that Cloud was his boss, though he wasn't sure why.

"Oh, well I'm sure the right girl is out there somewhere." Sion said, it sounded like he was trying to be reassuring.

"Yeah I suppose." Sora agreed, it was easier.

"Hey I was thinking. You know before the summer is out, you should fly out here and pay me and Minnie a visit." He paused for a second, then continued. "My treat of course."

Sora froze. This was new, Sion had never before bothered to extend an invitation to him. His voice seemed to be caught in his throat. It was no big deal asking Sion about his new family. But to actually meet them face to face. He saw Ann come back down the hall, she was smiling. Something on his face must have concerned her though because it quickly evaporated.

"Is something wrong?" She asked.

Sion continued, obviously thinking he would have to convince Sora. "Minnie's pregnant again hey. She'd like to meet you, ya know? I'm sure you and petie would have lots of fun."

"I can't." Sora's throat was dry. Minnie was pregnant again? "I've got a job this summer."

"Oh-" He sounded hurt. He must not have been expecting Sora to turn him down. "Oh well... there's always winter break. You can see the new baby then."

"Yeah we'll see."

"Hey could I speak to your Mom? Happy Birthday again sport."

"Yeah sure, thanks." Sora said weakly before handing the phone back to his mother.

She took it, still looking concerned. Sora went back into his room and collapsed on his bed. He felt awful. He wasn't sure how long he sat there like that. The world seemed to be swimming around him. The next thing he was clearly aware of was Ann poking her head in the room.

"Sora?" She said softly.

"Mhmm." He acknowledged. His face buried in his pillow.

"He told me what he asked you." She said as she sat on the edge of his bed, brushing a hand through his hair.

"Mhmm." Sora said again.

"Why'd you say no? They'd probably give you the time off at work." She asked. "I think you should see your father."

Sora rolled over so he could speak more clearly. "I don't really want to see him."

"Why not?"

"Because of everything he did. He didn't have to leave you behind like that. With nothing." Sora felt the anger towards his father growing.

"He didn't leave me with nothing. He left me with you and that's all that really matters." Ann said trying to reassure her son.

"Don't say that Mom. He went off and found another woman and started a whole new family and he didn't even think twice about you."

"That's not his fault." Ann said still in that soft voice. "He found someone he loves."

"Did he tell you they're having another kid?"

"Yes. Good for them."

"Yeah great now he'll have two more kids to run out on."

"Oh Sora. He's changed since back then. He'll stay with those kids. Can't you see that he's changed. He wants you to go see them. He would never have done that a few years ago."

"Did he ask you to come?"

"Well no... he wants father son bonding time. I don't have anything to do with that."

Sora didn't answer. He just rolled back over. Maybe he could get some more sleep. Then he'd wake up and remember that it's his birthday then he could go on the computer and write some letters to Tidus and Wakka and feel so much better.

"I'm going to make some breakfast." Ann said as she stood up. "Chocolate chip pancakes, your favourite. Why don't you get some more sleep before it's ready."

He listened to her leave the room, and close the door firmly behind her. Sora laid there for awhile longer before he finally drifted off to sleep.

* * *

Sora groaned as he looked up at the clock. It was only quarter past eleven. Damn getting up that early really sucked. He had already had his breakfast and had even finished off his e-mails to his two blitz friends. He had been pleased to hear from Wakka. He had stories about the last big match, the girl that Tidus was crushing on had shown up. She had even brought a friend apparently. Wakka had described her as quite the looker. Sora was sure that Tidus wasn't the only one with a crush at the moment. He had pointed that out in his letter to Wakka. He was sure he'd get a response rebuffing the whole thing. That he couldn't go out with a girl unless she was absolutely serious about blitzball. He had claimed as much back in middle school. He looked back up at the clock again. It hadn't even moved!

Time seemed to be only slowing down further, the longer he waited. He stared at the mechanical device willing it to move forward faster.

"You know Sora. I think this might be a case of a watched pot never boils..." Ann said, as she watched her son slumped over the table.

"...What does a pot have to do with anything?" He asked, not understanding what she was talking about.

"You know for a bright kid you can be pretty dense." She said shaking her head. "Why don't you go outside and get some fresh air, enjoy your youth etcetera, etcetera."

"Fresh air can kill you, you know." Sora tried, cracking a smile at his mother.

She rolled her eyes at him. "Do you have any idea how many kids would kill to live this close to a tropical beach. Yet you hardly ever take advantage of it now."

"Yeah but I never get to go skiing." Sora countered.

"Get out of my sight before I ground you for being a lazy lump." She argued back, before leaving to her office to get some work done.

Sora sighed, she was right though. Time would pass a little quicker if he was doing something. Plus it was a nice day outside. Perhaps he could walk to the beach, he might run into someone he knew there. The beach was the hang out for the vast majority of the island, and it being a weekend put the chances even higher that he might see someone from school he could waste a couple of hours with.

The residents of this island were fairly lucky. Destiny Islands was a spot that a lot of tourists flocked to both in the summer and the winter months. Since this was one of the smaller islands there usually weren't too many of them on the beaches. The larger islands usually played residence to the flocks of tourists that came out every season. This meant that they had enough people coming to the island to help out the economy, but not so many that the beaches became crowded. Sora could remember going to one of the busier beaches with Roxas once when they were children. It had been so packed with people that it was hard to get to the water. Roxas still complained about it every once in awhile. Though Sora's favourite time to go to the beach was at night, just after the sun set. The murky black water was always warmer after the air had cooled down, and there never were people around. He loved to walk along the beach in the dark after a swim and let his imagination go free.

He knew he was getting close now. The worn cement sidewalk had turned to wood under his feet and he could smell the salt in the air. He walked along the well known path, watching the people around him. He could see a woman with a group of children, probably her kids and their friends, not yet old enough to go by themselves. The vendors were lined along the boardwalk all of them promoting their products, ice cream, hot dogs, hamburgers, and snow cones. Sora smiled as he passed a snow cone vendor, thinking of the irony. They sold snow cones but yet hardly any of the residents had ever actually seen snow before in their lives. Sora included. Sion had told him about the snow that fell at his new home, with his new family before. He shook his head, he didn't need those thoughts to come back now. He had dealt with everything earlier today.

He spotted some kids he knew from school playing in the surf but he merely waved at them and continued to walk along. He hadn't exactly come dressed for the beach, swimming would be out of the question. He did think though, that it might be refreshing to walk through the surf. He would have to thank Ann. The tepid water felt refreshing after being out in the heat before. He walked along, chunky yellow shoes in hand, spotting the odd familiar face. He spoke to none of them though. It seemed counter productive since he had been hoping to waste time with someone.

He looked out into the surf and figured he may as well head out deeper, at least to his knees. It wouldn't cause any damage if the bottom of his shorts got a little wet. Just as he hoped the deeper water was even more refreshing then the shallow shoals. He was careful to hold his shoes above the water line, wishing he had worn his sandals instead, he could have just worn those into the water. He was enjoying himself in the cool water but the sound of his stomach growling brought him back to reality. The water may be great but it certainly didn't hold the greasy treasures of the boardwalk.

He had just made it back to the shallow water, the kind that only possessed a threat to your ankles.

"Heya Wart." A voice said nearby.

Sora looked up, his heart sinking he recognized the person who the voice belonged to.

"Hi Kay." He greeted.

"Now what would someone like you be doin' in a place like this? Hmm?" Kay asked leaning forward to equal out some of the height distance between the two.

"Well you know just passing some time. I thought I might cool off in the water a bit." Sora tried to sound as casual as he could. He hoped that his nerves weren't apparent in his voice. At the moment he was terrified.

"Really now? Well you're doing a terrible job of it you're hardly wet at all." Kay pointed out.

He had a point, though Sora had intentionally tried to stay out of the deep water. "I didn't really dress appropriately."

"Hmm, really now? It seems just fine to me." Kay said, standing back up to his full height.

"Well, no not really." Sora didn't know what to say to get rid of one of his schools most notorious bullys.

"Nah I think you're just fine for it wart. Hows about you go for a little dip?" Kay said threateningly as he took a few steps closer to Sora.

Sora retreated a few steps. He gripped his shoes tightly in his hands. "No please I'd rather just go find something to eat."

"Well you can do that after you've properly cooled off then." Kay pointed out, entering into the oceans spray a little further.

Again Sora backed up, he couldn't keep doing this. The water was already half way up his calfs. If he kept retreating he would end up in the deep water without Kay even laying a finger on him. He began to evaluate his options. Keep retreating into the water until Kay was satisfied with his damp level. He could fight back, then more then likely end up more then just wet. He could stop retreating, probably to only end up tossed into the water. He could try to run away, but Kay was a star from the schools track team. It seemed no matter what route his mind tried it was immediately shot down. He was doomed to get wet.

"Kay, Hey Kay!" Another voice interrupted.

Both boys in the surf looked at the figure. A skinny boy with messy blonde hair was running down the beach to them. Sora recognized him as Arthur, Kay's younger half brother.

Kay turned around and bellowed back. "Wha' you wan' Wart?"

"Pa said he wanted you back at the house." Arthur informed his brother.

Kay turned and gave Sora a dirty look. "Looks like you're going to get off easy. S'long as my Pa don't keep me long."

Sora felt instantly relieved, he was getting out of it. The feeling didn't last long however. Before he knew it Kay had crossed the distance between them and shoved Sora into the surf. He landed on his ass, the water instantly wetting through his shorts and the parts of his shirt that sat in the water. He didn't move from the water as he watched Kay leave. He was just as abusive towards his brother as he was anyone else. Sora watched as he pushed the blonde out of his way. Arthur landed not so gracefully into the sand on the beach. He got up right away however, pausing only briefly to dust the sand off of himself before he trotted after his older brother.

Sora was snapped back into reality when something yellow entered his perifial vision. He looked over to see one of his shoes floating in the water. He sighed, knowing that he really should have worn different shoes to the beach. He stood up and grabbed his shoe searching shortly for the other. It was closer to shore, the waves having brought it in. He grabbed that and made for dry land. He attempted vainly to squeeze the excess water out of his shorts. It didn't matter he would be soggy for the next hour or so, his shoes would take much longer to dry out then his clothes. At least it was a warm day.

He knew if he sat in the warmth of the sun he would dry off much faster then if he were to trudge all the way home for a towel. So he made his way, barefoot, back to the boardwalk. His stomach was starting to remind him that breakfast had been awhile ago and something from one of the vendors would sure hit the spot right now. He walked up the wooden planks, being careful to not get any splinters on his feet, trying to decide what would taste the best. He spotted a Hot Dog vendor, and it smelt great. Suddenly a hot dog, loaded with toppings seemed like a really good idea.

* * *

As usual it paid off to be friendly with the vendor. It was one of his habits to come to the beach to indulge in some of the greasy treasures he could get no where else. Zells stand was one of his favourites too. He would often make a trip down to the beach to shoot the breeze with the friendly business man. Every so often he would even be rewarded with a free dog or drink. Unfortunately it was fairly busy on the boardwalk today and Zell didn't have the time to stand and chat with the brunette. He did get a seconds free of charge though. Of course this may only be because Sora had mentioned that it was his birthday. Hey he may as well take full advantage of it while he could, not everyday was your birthday. Sora had thought about sticking around with his second hot dog, but changed his mind when Zell only appeared to be getting busier and busier as the day wore on.

Instead Sora ate his dog as he walked slowly along the boardwalk. He watched the people move along the beach. A ferry must have just dropped off a load of tourists. Every so often that would happen. He was aware of one company that offered island tours, they'd load a ferry with passengers and take them to some of the smaller islands. He still remembered the one summer when he had met one of the tourist kids. A boy maybe only a few years older them himself, it had been a big let down when at the end of the day he had to go back onto the ferry and whisked away back to whichever hotel he had been staying at with his parents. It was a typical story, back then they weren't old enough to know who was a native to the islands and who wasn't. Sora made it a point now not to try and befriend the tourists. You'd probably never see them again.

He didn't have that problem now. Years of dealing with strangers on the island had seasoned his instincts. He could point them out from the natives by the way they dressed, talked, ate. Everywhere had different customs, did things their own way. He had been just too naive as a child to recognize it. Sora sat down on an empty bench along the boardwalk, suddenly feeling weary and old. It was ridiculous of him to feel that way, he knew it. He was eighteen today that was still very young, but for the first time he could look back on his life and reflect. He could only imagine what it would be like when he had thirty, forty years to look back on.

He could still remember coming to the beech with his parents, both of them, years and years ago. He had met Riku here, Kairi too. His mother and Riku's mother had been friends in school, they forced the two boys into each others company. Back then Sora had been overly affectionate towards Sion, his father. He could still remember looking up at him and thinking he looked so tall, and so strong. If only he had known then that Sion would in only a few short years, break his mothers heart and abandon his oldest son. Ann had always been worried that Sora hadn't made any friends his age. She had plotted with Rikus mother for the two boys to meet. They had staged a trip to the beech.

Sora looked out the over water, he could remember the temper tantrum he had thrown. He was upset that Sion hadn't come along, he didn't want to go play with the silver haired boy in the sand. Funny enough, it was Riku Sora had turned to when his father left. It was Riku who saw the pain that the man had caused, and now it was Riku causing the pain. Obviously Sora hadn't grown enough to know how to protect himself from such emotional abuse yet.

He shook his head, getting up off of the bench. This wasn't helping, today was his birthday he was supposed to be in a good mood, it was his day. If only it hadn't started off so badly. He wished he knew a way to tell Sion not to bother calling. Not to share stories of his new family, who obviously made him so much happier. Not to bother to try and be a father now.

He went back onto the sand, it was much nicer to walk barefoot there then on the splintered planks of the boardwalk. His shorts had dried by now, but his shoes still held onto their dampness. It was down by the old ice cream parlour where Riku and Sora had met Kairi. Absentmindedly he made his way that way. The whole island had thrown a big celebration when the new mayor had been elected. Though he was the new mayor no more. Back then Sion had already left the islands and had already met Minnie. They hadn't gotten married yet then. Sora and Riku had gone with their respective families down to the beach, lured there by the promise of free food. It was the party for the mayor, a big congratulations for the win. Sora and Riku had climbed there way under the ice cream parlour, they had been planning to try and catch some of the crabs that made their home under there. Kairi had found them wriggling under the building. She thought they were awfully funny and even tried to join in. She hadn't been able to catch any of the crabs however. The two boys didn't have a problem sharing their spoils with the girl. Sora smiled as he could see several children trying to do the very thing they had done. Wrestling with the crabs, and doing their best to avoid the sharp pincers.

It had come as such a shock to the two boys when Kairi finally told them that she was the mayors daughter. It was like knowing a celebrity on that tiny little island.

Sora smiled when one of the boys got a hold of a crab. He threw his hands up in the air, victoriously displaying to his friends the creature he had captured. He wasn't sure how much time he had managed to pass yet, his shoes felt dry in his hands though. He put them back on and figured he may as well make his way back home. He was still sitting in the sand, having just finished lacing up his shoes when he heard that voice again.

"Hiya again Wart."

Oh no Kay had come back.

He looked over his shoulder to see the tall blonde boy. He had a grin spread wide across his face. This was definitely the worst birthday ever. Sora didn't bother to answer, he hoped that if he did his best to ignore the other boy he'd just give up and leave.

"Guess what I found?" Kay said. There was no one with him, so it was obvious he was posing the question to Sora.

"Um... what did you find?" Sora tried, hoping desperately the answer was something corny like a seashell.

"A shrimp!" He exclaimed loudly.

Sora got the joke, unfortunately.

He laughed weakly. "Ha, yeah funny Kay."

"Hey Wart. I don't like that sweater you've got on."

Sora looked down at the hoodie he had casually thrown on before leaving his house. It was simple solid red, nothing offensive about it. "Really?"

"Yeah I think you'd look better in black and blue."

Kay reached forward and grabbed the front of Sora's hoodie, forcing him to stand on his toes. Sora winced when he saw Kay's free hand draw back and form a fist. He waited for the blow to come, too afraid to raise his arms incase that only provoked the brute further. However it never came.

Instead he was dropped, he landed roughly back onto his feet, the surprise of his sudden release didn't give him anytime to prepare for the landing. Instead he landed firmly on his rear. From here he could look up at the scene and his saviour. He wasn't sure when Cloud had arrived but he was both taller and broader then Kay, after all Kay was still just a teenager, and he looked livid. He currently had Kay in a tight grip around his arm.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" Cloud ground out between clenched teeth.

Kay looked shocked, clearly he wasn't expecting someone bigger then him to show up.

"Who the hell are you?" He spat out. "Mind your own fucking business old man."

"You little shit." Cloud growled out, releasing his hold on Kay with a shove.

Kay stumbled back but managed to regain his footing. He growled and suddenly struck out at Cloud, his right hook was wide and Cloud easily dodged it. Kay only grew more enraged with every missed hit. Sora sat on the spot he had fallen, shocked, he wasn't quite sure what he could do. He reacted instinctively when he saw Cloud draw back for his own hit.

"Stop!" He yelled out, loud enough that both men stopped what they were doing to stare at him.

"Please stop." He repeated in a quieter tone.

"Sora... but he was..." Cloud started but stopped when Sora scrambled off of the ground.

He grabbed a hold of the arm Cloud still had pulled back, ready for a hit. He ignored the sand that had made it's way into his shorts, he ignored the pain that shot up his back from where he landed on the ground. He just didn't want them fighting.

"Please Cloud." He pleaded. "He's just a bully. He's not worth it."

Slowly Cloud relaxed, Sora didn't release his grip until Clouds arm was back down at his side. He didn't bother to look at Kay until he was sure Cloud wasn't going to suddenly attack again. Once he was sure Cloud was back under control he turned his gaze to Kay. He had a wild look in his eyes. He wouldn't have won that fight and he knew it, he owed Sora his thanks. Sora knew that it would never happen though.

"Please just go." He pleaded.

Kay didn't take long to think it over, he retreated quickly. Not before he could utter a threat to Sora.

"You'd better watch your back once school starts up again wart."

Cloud had made another lunge at that but didn't actually go after the boys retreating figure.

"I should go after him." Cloud muttered, glaring daggers at the exposed back.

"There's no point. He's not worth it." Sora argued.

"He was going to hurt you!" Cloud defended.

"He's all talk really. It was probably just going to be one slap and that's it."

Cloud bristled. "Little fucks like that deserve to be shipped off to a desert island somewhere and just be forgotten."

"Come on just leave it be. What are you doing here anyway?" He desperately hoped that he could divert Clouds attention away from the problem.

"Yuffie's covering for me at work for the day. I got bored at home so I figured I'd come get something to eat down here." Cloud answered, finally turning his full attention onto the brunette.

Sora swallowed nervously when his eyes made contact with Clouds. He quickly looked away, up the boardwalk he had come. "Want to get a hot dog from Zells stand?"

"A hot dog? Sure it's been years since I've had one of those."

Sora flashed a mega-watt grin up at the blonde. "Excellent!"

* * *

Author Notes: I'll apologize again for the lateness of this chapter. This one gave me such a hard time. For anyone who hasn't read the original, this was chapter 5. It was really scattered all over the place, full of flash backs and the point of view kept changing. I ended up having to cut a lot of it out. It really wasn't needed. And Sora is such a whiny little bitch in this chapter, I promise it'll get better.

Shameless self plug here. Anyone who hasn't seen it already and is an AkuRoku fan, I've got a new story up. Bonneville, go check it out.

As always leave me a review letting me know what you think... I know this chapter wasn't my best. I'll try better next time I promise.


	8. Chapter 8

RE: You Could be the Reason

Chapter Eight

* * *

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the rights towards Kingdom Hearts or it's characters. The plot is mine though.

Author Notes: Ahh I'm so sorry this is so late!! This was another one of those chapter that gave me a lot of troubles. I ended up having to cut so much out of the original, I had to combine two chapters together. Well at least this ones a better length then the last chapter. Enjoy!

* * *

Does it ever work out for you? That mythical, fabled perfect day. I always thought you're birthday was supposed to be that day. The one day of the year that's supposed to be all about you. What do I get? I was woke up far to early, only to have that yearly awkward conversation with my Dad. I get picked on, and nearly beat up by a bully. I still maintain that I don't have a bully problem, I'm not one of those kids. And who rescues me? None other then my own knight in shining armour. One Cloud Strife.  


* * *

Cloud and Sora slowly walked further and further away from the beach. Their meagre meal long finished. Luckily for Sora, Cloud seemed to have calmed down from the bully incident, though he still swore that vengeance would be enacted. Sora tried vainly to keep the conversation light and airy. He swore he wasn't nervous being alone around Cloud, at least that's what he kept telling himself. No matter how hard he tried he couldn't quite shake the feeling he got around the older man. It didn't seem to matter that they were currently walking down the sidewalk talking about the weather, the back of his mind was squarely intent on that haphazard confession. 'She wouldn't agree with me lusting after someone so young' those had been his words, and Sora had been replaying them in his mind over and over again. No matter how he looked at it, there was no getting around the matter. He didn't know how he was supposed to react in that kind of situation, this kind of situation. He was alone with the man now.

He took a few deep breathes to steady himself. Cloud picked up on it.

"Is something wrong? If it's that kid-" He let the sentence hang in the air unfinished.

"No, it's got nothing to do with that." Well at least it was partially true.

"So what's bugging you?"

He was concerned, Sora didn't blame him, he never was very good at hiding his feelings. Always wore his heart on his sleeve his mother would proclaim. So he did the first thing he could think of, he lied.

"I was just thrown this morning. My Dad called."

"I take it that's not a good thing."

"No it's not that it's bad, he does it every year. One of the only times I get to talk to him actually. He just brought up that his new wife's expecting again. And- and he wants me to go visit them."

"Must be hard." Cloud started. "Knowing he's got a new family."

"Really hard. You should hear him talk about his son, he's always so proud. I don't think he ever talked about me like that."

Cloud threw an arm around Sora's shoulder. Sora stiffened at the contact. It was probably meant to be comforting, but it only served to add to his concerns. If Cloud noticed, he didn't show any signs of it.

"It sounds like he's trying to make amends for it. He did invite you to come visit. Normally people don't ask people they don't want to see around."

"Yeah I suppose you've got a point. Mom goes on about him changing and everything, but I just don't think I'll ever get past what he did."

"You mean leaving your Mom?" Cloud guessed.

Sora nodded. "And me."

"Well look on the bright side. You've got the rest of today to put that behind you for now." Cloud removed his arm, Sora felt he could breathe a little easier after that.

"Yeah it's about time. How'd you get Yuffie to cover for you anyway?" Sora asked, hoping that the new topic could keep things away from anything else potentially awkward.

"Easy, I just threatened a pay cut." He said with a shrug.

Sora gaped at him with incredulous eyes. "You can do that?!"

Cloud laughed, it was soft, just barely escaping past his lips. "No not really, she's doing it as a favour."

"That's nice of her then." Sora said awkwardly. His plan failed, it seemed everything was awkward with Cloud.

He wasn't sure where they were going, he didn't think Cloud knew either. They left the beach behind them and just followed the sidewalk wherever it went. The whole time Sora fidgeted nervously with the hem of his shirt, not entirely willing to look at the other man. Where had he gone wrong? He used to like spending time with Cloud. He would have been thrilled to be able to spend the whole day with the man only a week ago. He wished vainly that he could get past this, well whatever this was, he didn't really have a name for it. He felt nervous and excited, his stomach flip-flopped around the blonde. He was uncomfortable, yet loved being able to look up into those blue eyes if he so wished. Sora was irrevocably a mess.

A movement from out of the corner of his eyes caught Sora's attention. Cloud was lifting his hand to check his watch. They had fallen into silence a while ago and neither male seemed to know how to break the silence properly.

"I guess we're a bit early huh." Cloud said quietly.

Sora had no problems hearing him however.

"Yeah but that's okay. I really didn't have anything else to do anyway."

"What should we do?"

Sora shrugged. He hadn't known what he was going to do alone, let alone with someone else. It should be easier to waste a couple hours with someone. They continued to walk, following the flow of people around them. Small talk occupying the space between them. The strangers lead them to the islands only public library. They didn't follow anyone into the building, instead they took to loitering around outside.

"What you said earlier, about your Dad making that suggestion." Cloud said, switching away from their topic of the island tourists.

"What about it?" Sora was not quite so happy about the subject coming up again.

"When was he wanting you to see him?"

"It doesn't really matter. I told him I was already too busy this summer." Sora explained hoping that Cloud would get the hint and drop the matter.  
"Well it wouldn't be too big of a deal if you wanted a week off or anything." Cloud offered.

Sora shook his head. "No I'm supposed to be the one covering everyone else's holidays remember."

"When was the last time you saw the guy?"

"When he left."

"You must want to see him. He is your father after all. It must hurt him, knowing you don't want to see him. I'm sure he's just looking out for your best interests."

Again Sora shook his head in a negative. "He knew the consequences when he left. Mom yelled at him for a month solid. It's not that I don't want to see him. I just think he should come here if he cares that much."

"Don't you want to get off these islands and see more of the world?" Cloud asked.

Sora leant back against the library wall, watching the clouds drift in the sky. "Sure I do. Just on my own terms."

"I think you should take up his offer." Cloud said bluntly.

"I can tell."

"No one would care if you took off for a week if that's what you're worried about. I can work it into the schedule on Monday if you want."

"No. I told him maybe Christmas. He'll probably have given up on the idea by then anyway." Sora explained. He was getting tense, he didn't want to talk about this anymore, particularly with Cloud.

"Why not do both?"

"I don't want to." Soras response was clipped, terse.

"What if you-"

Sora interrupted, finally at his breaking point. "Why do you keep pestering me about this?"

Cloud stopped, his jaw hanging open slightly. He stood mutely, dumbly looking at Sora. "I- I just thought..."

He trailed off but Sora didn't pick up the conversation, waiting patiently for his answer. Cloud continued when he realized that Sora meant business.

"You should forgive your Dad, it's not right that you should hate him so much when it's obvious he cares."

"What makes you think that. You don't know what it's like what... what.."

"No maybe not, but I think you're lucky you've still got your Dad out there somewhere."

"What do you mean?" Soras voice was softer now, the hard tone from his impatience fading.

"I was raised by my Mom too. I never knew my Dad, he passed away when I was very young."

Sora fell silent, all of his animosity towards the blonde gone. "I'm sorry." He said lamely.

Cloud smiled at him. "You don't have to apologize."

"Yes I do. I'm sorry that I went off the handle like that. I should know better, I'm not the only kid that grew up with only one parent. There are lots of people out there in much worse positions then me."

Cloud pealed Sora away from the wall, pulling him into an awkward hug. "You know if I had a kid like you I'd never want to do that. If I couldn't see you I'd at least call you everyday. You'd get so sick of me calling you and asking how your day went."

Sora laughed into Clouds chest. "I couldn't picture you with kids."

"I'd call and ask you if you had a girlfriend."

"No I don't."

"Well why the fuck not? What's wrong with those girls that they don't want to go out with a cute kid like you."

Sora pulled out of the hug smiling. "I don't mind really. Most girls are superficial anyway."

"You've got to meet yourself a college girl that's your problem. Someone smart with like a masters degree in... in glass!"

"A masters degree in glass?" Sora asked, he'd never heard of such a thing.

"It exists." He said, picking up on the smaller boys disbelief. "I met a guy once who had a masters degree in glass, only he couldn't get a job with any of the companies he applied at because he was over qualified. He ended up teaching."

Sora laughed. "Are you serious?"

"Dead. He was good too, I watched him make a glass vase."

They picked up their walk again. This time leaving the tourists behind them. Their conversation was more natural this time.  


* * *

They wound their way through the streets of the island, slowly making their way back to Sora's home. They took their sweet time, making a game of avoiding the few summer tourists that made their way this far into the island. Inevitably they wound up at the house, and for the first time Sora extended an invitation to Cloud to come inside. Ann was still busy, working away in her office. So the two went upstairs to waste away a couple more hours playing video games.

Sora led the way into his room, Cloud following right behind him. Sora didn't notice the way Cloud stopped in the doorway though, focusing more on setting up the games.

"Your room is purple?" Cloud asked.

Sora looked up from his work de-tangling some wire to look at the man. "Uh huh. Is there something wrong with purple?"

Sora watched with a smile as Cloud took in the environment. Watched as his eyes swept over the lilac walls and curtains, the shelves on the walls, the one to many pieces of furniture shoved into the small room. "No I just didn't peg you as a purple kind of guy."

Sora laughed at the delayed answer. "It was my Mom's idea." He said with a shrug. "I don't mind it though. I got to pick out the bedding."

He gestured to the bed. Not a spot of purple on it, aside from a violet bear Cloud could spot peaking over some pillows.

"It's nice." He said finally stepping into the room fully. He moved to the shelves, reading the titles of the books that sat there. "You've got quite the collection."

Sora looked up from his wires again. "Yeah I guess so. I like to read. There's more in the closet."

"You've got more hidden away really?"

"Yep, bookshelf in the closet." Sora stood up and crossed the room, opening a cupboard on his desk. "More in here. And in here too." He said gesturing to a small night stand next to his bed.

"Seriously?" Cloud leant down to look at the books hidden in the desk. Indeed it was full of books, there was a old looking printer buried under all of them. "Don't like borrowing them from the library?"

"No, I like to take my time, and I reread a bunch of them. I get most of the used though." He said going back to his project.

Cloud closed the door and perched on the edge of the bed, watching Sora work. He had opened a drawer that contained a few different game systems, all of their wires twisted around each other. Sora had most of them sorted out by now though.

"So what do you want to play first?" Sora asked over his shoulder smiling at his boss.

No not boss today, today they were just friends, no professional relationship.  


* * *

Evening came quickly, assisted by the electronic gizmos Sora seemed to have hidden all over his room, just like his books. However the controllers had been forgotten about, left abandoned on the floor. Cloud was digging through Sora's closet.

"Don't you own anything that isn't completely casual that isn't work clothes?" Cloud complained as he shifted through the clothes.

"I like to be comfortable at school." Sora reasoned. "I didn't think we would be going anywhere fancy."

"Well it's not really, its just you're the birthday boy. You should have something special. Maybe we should stop by a dollar store and buy a plastic crown or something."

"No thanks I really don't want any extra attention." Sora felt his face grow warm. That would be so embarrassing.

Cloud shrugged, but didn't say anything about not getting something for the birthday boy. He went back to the closet and rummaged around some more. Eventually he emerged with a few items he deemed passable. Sora looked at them suspiciously, what was wrong with what he was already wearing?

He handed the clothes of to Sora. "Here change into these."

Sora eyed the items carefully. A printed t-shirt, a button down shirt he wore to work and an old pair of black slacks.

"Um, one problem." Sora said holding up the pants. "I grew out of these years ago, plus they never were very comfortable."

"Try them on." Cloud said rolling his eyes at the look of utter indignation on Soras face.

"What no way, I told you they don't fit." Sora said looking at the pants as if they'd bite, throwing them down onto the floor. He had always hated the way they fit, always had been to snug around his legs.

"Try them on let me see then I'll decide if they're no good." Cloud tried to compromise.

Sora pouted, picking the pants up from where he had tossed them. "Fine but once you see how awful they are you promise to let me pick out something else?"

"Yeah Yeah come on then." He said as he pulled the door shut behind him, leaving Sora alone in the room.

Sora hesitated a bit, glancing at the door a few times before deciding to just get it done and over with. He awkwardly scrambled out of the shorts he had worn to the beach earlier. Then standing in his boxers he attempted to pull the slacks up. They fit just as he last remembered, snug around his thighs. He struggled as soon as they reached his hips. Come on, he pleaded silently with the pants. It's not like he was shaped like a girl. Finally after much struggling a few silent prayers the pants were up and the button fly was closed quickly. He didn't even bother checking his reflection, knowing he'd look ridiculous already.

He crossed the room and stood awkwardly in front of the door, just open it, show him and then you'll be done. He urged himself on. One deep breath and he did just that. He threw the door open quickly.

"Okay there you see way too small." Immediately after he attempted to close the door.

Cloud stopped him, throwing his foot out between the door and the jam. "Hold on I've got to have a look."

"I already showed you." Sora argued, still trying to close the door.

Unfortunately for him Cloud was stronger and was able to muscle open the door before Sora was able to shut it properly again.

"Come on." Cloud said once he was back in the room again. "The deal was I would be the one to decide if they worked or not."

Sora sighed, resigning himself to his fate. He stilled, letting Cloud inspect the pants. The blonde made a full circle around him, when he came back to the front he had a silly smile plastered across his face.

"Oh please don't laugh at me." Sora pleaded.

"No I wouldn't do that, but the shorts underneath do look pretty silly."

"Okay fine, so can I change now?" Sora said moving to his dresser to find a different pair of pants to wear.

"Nope."

"What?" Sora said swivelling around to look at his so called friend.

"Loose the boxers, and change your shirt. Then we'll go meet Leon."

"What but..." Sora tried weakly.

"I have spoken, now do it." Cloud said, exiting the room again.

Sora looked down at the pants he was wearing, if he took of his boxers... what would he wear underneath?  


* * *

It turned out Leon came and picked up both Cloud and Sora from Soras home. Since Cloud had walked to the beach, he had called Leon and requested as much. Leon hadn't exactly been thrilled about it but he arrived and whisked them off to wherever it was Cloud was wanting to go. Not without a comment about Soras pants, seemingly ignoring how tightly his own pants fit. The three of them were sitting in Leon's small car, He was doing spectacularly against Clouds teasing. Sora figured the two of them probably did this a lot. It may have not been the most remarkable car, but it did what Leon wanted; it got him from point A to point B.

Cloud had called shotgun as soon as Leon had pulled up in front of the house, leaving Sora in the back seat. Leon had remarked on how rude that was to do to someone on their birthday, though Sora really hadn't minded. He was enjoying the show from back here. The two friends were certainly something else. Sora could tell they had been good friends for years, just with the way they acted and teased each other.

He watched their surroundings, out the car window, with interest. He had been all over this little island throughout his life. So he knew that they were approaching the business district. He was trying to see if he could guess where they would be going tonight. He had thought they'd be going to the Seventh Heaven again, but was wrong after they had driven right past it. There weren't very many establishments on the island to chose from. Though as soon as he saw the building he knew exactly what Cloud had in mind. Leon parked the car in front of a small building. It was a simple structure with wooden walls and a thatched roof. A tourist place that was showing it's age. A pink neon sign sat crookedly on the roof. Sora guess as he looked up at it, that it had seen its fair share of tropical storms.

"Fiji's Island Pub." He read out loud off the sign.

"That's right." Cloud said as he pulled Sora out of his seat.

"You really think this is the place to go?" Leon asked, he also seemed to be questioning the haphazard exterior.

"Come on Leon, we always have fun when we come here." Cloud pressured.

"I suppose I'm the one playing DD tonight." Leon continued.

"Well it is Sora's birthday, and I'm off tomorrow and all. I'm sure we'd both be pretty grateful if you were the designated driver." Cloud continued.

"Thank you." Sora interjected. It seemed rude not to be thankful for Leon's concern for their safety.

Leon smiled at the younger brunette. "Well we all know Cloud isn't responsible enough to look after himself, let alone some young naive boy."

"Hey I'm not naive." Sora defended.

"See that's what makes you so likeable you're guileless but don't know it. It's a classic story." Cloud said ruffling Soras spikes. "Now come on lets get inside."

Cloud held open the thin door and let Leon and Sora in ahead of him. Sora looked around in interest, but didn't get very far in before their path was blocked. Sora looked up at the tall man standing in front of him. He had broad shoulders and his large arms were crossed firmly across his chest.

"Sorry Son." He said in a booming voice. "No minors allowed in this establishment, I'm sure you understand. I'm going to have to insist you leave."

Sora gaped up at the man, much taller then himself. He had a strong clefted chin and a shimmering white smile. He wasn't sure what to tell the man.

"Hey Gaston, don't worry about him. It's his birthday today, he's officially legal." Cloud said trying to brush past the frenchman.

Gaston didn't seem to take this news very well. He gripped Cloud by the shoulders and tried to steer him in the opposite direction. It looked like a fight was about to break out, even Leon looked perturbed by the situation. Suddenly there was another figure. He pushed his way between Gaston and Cloud. He was a plump man who barely reached Gaston's waist. His voice was the complete opposite of Gaston's. Where the tall mans voice was a deep rich baritone, This mans was a peculiar high pitched, almost raspy tone.

"Hey Gaston don't worry about this riff raff." He said as he pushed his shirt sleeves over his pudgy elbows. "I'll take care of them."

Immediately Gaston let go of Cloud and straightened himself out, fixing his hair in the process. "Ah good work Le Fou."

Cloud still didn't look happy, but didn't make chase as Gaston left the four behind.

Le Fou grabbed Sora by the arm and tried to pull him back toward the door. Naturally Sora resisted. Le Fou was shorter then Sora, and even though he looked like he had a few pounds up on Sora he wasn't able to budge the boy. The grip was loosened as soon as Cloud turned on Le Fou.

"Come on it's his birthday today you can't just throw him out." Cloud pleaded, sharpening his gaze on the poor little frenchman.

"Shouldn't you ask for my ID or something?" Sora tried.

Le Fou seemed to think this suggestion over. The cogs and wheels working furiously in his head. "I dunno... What do you think Gaston?"

Gaston hadn't gone very far, far enough to be away from the situation, but close enough he could still hear every word exchanged. "Well I suppose it wouldn't hurt. Go ahead Le Fou check it out!"

Sora wrenched his arm out of the little frenchmans grip and dug his wallet out of his pocket. "You know I was under the impression that this is what you're supposed to do."

"You might want to consider it Gaston." Leon chimed in.

"Yeah, it would probably cut down the complaints you get." Cloud added.

Le Fou took Soras licence from him,. Turning it over several times, while Cloud and Leon teased the taller frenchman.

"Mmmm, uh huh." Le Fou finally said.

"What does that mean exactly?" Sora asked, he was getting very frustrated with these two.

"Ah ha!" Le Fou finally exclaimed.

"What did you find?" Gaston said, approaching the group again.

"It says right here." Le Fou said pointing to the card. "Under eighteen. Therefore you're a minor kid."

Gaston broke out into large guffaws. "Well then isn't that a shame."

"Hold on a second." Leon said as he pulled Sora's card out of the short mans hands. Leaning down so he'd be on the same level. "Do you see that there?"

Le Fou nodded.

"What would that be?"

"Todays date?"

"Very good, so what does that mean?"

"Uh, that... today's... his... birthday?" Le Fou answered hesitantly.

Sora wasn't quite sure he was seeing this. Leon was talking to this man like he was a child. He looked to Cloud for some kind of confirmation. Cloud was smiling, there was a mischievous glint in his eye. Sora guessed that this wasn't the first time they've had to go through something like this.

"Correct." Leon said, standing back up to his full height and clapped Le Fou on the shoulder. He handed Sora back his ID. Poor Le Fou looked confused. Cloud took advantage of the situation. Thanking Le Fou and pulling Sora away from the entrance and into a booth near the back. Leon joined them very shortly after, once he had dismissed the short frenchman.

"Well Sora welcome to Fiji's." Cloud said with a smile.

"Thanks." Sora said returning the smile.

Sora was finally able to get a good look around the place. He took his time observing his surroundings, while Cloud and Leon seemed to be distracted by a menu. He was expecting the interior to match the exterior. Something really kitschy, maybe some plastic palm trees along the walls. Bamboo tables and the like. However it was nothing like that. The walls were all wood panelled, a massive stone fireplace was on one wall, it was surrounded by stuffed heads. Animals all sorts, deer to small rodents. In the middle of the room was a collection of billiards tables, all of them empty at the moment. The bar itself was situated across from where they were currently sitting, a massive structure, covered in worn brown leather. Quite honestly this didn't look like an island pub, the only thing island about it was the fact that it was located on an island. Who decided to name this place Fiji's?

He saw that Gaston character bustling about behind the bar. Talking animatedly with a few bar fly's, who looked like they had no where better to be.

"You guys come here to drink all the time?" Sora questioned. After all both Cloud and Leon had seemed comfortable with Le Fou and Cloud had known Gastons name.

Sora was surprised to hear Leon chuckle softly. "It doesn't seem like the kind of place we would go does it?"

"Not at all."

"It's lots of fun to pick on Le Fou." Cloud said pulling his nose out of the menu.

"It's also highly amusing to watch Cloud and Gaston get into it." Leon explained further.

"Hey what do you mean by that?" Cloud questioned, slamming his menu down.

"Oh come on, you've never gone here and not gotten into a fight with Gaston. You were about ready to clock him when he tried to stop Sora from coming in." Leon countered.

Sora went back to observing the bar and it's patrons while Leon and Cloud bickered back and forth. He spotted Le Fou bustling back and forth through a door, Sora guessed must lead into the kitchen. There were three girls acting as waitresses. They were all identical, he couldn't help but notice. They each had on a different colour silk scarf tied around their necks, probably only so people could tell them apart.

It wasn't very long before one of the girls came to their table. Long blonde hair, big brown doe eyes, and a baby blue scarf around her neck.

"Hey fella's." She greeted. "What can I get cha tonight?"

She turned those big eyes on Sora and gave him a wink. "How about you hun?"

Sora looked at her rather blankly. "Um..." He had no clue what he should order.

"Come on Sora what do you want?" Cloud asked, nudging him in the side with an elbow.

"I don't know." He answered truthfully.

"Well what do you normally like to drink?" Leon questioned.

"I've never really...." Sora started. He hoped they got the idea. He felt nervous with the pretty waitress looking at him like that.

"Okay Leon what's good to start him with? Beer?"

"Nah lets get him something sweeter. A high ball."

Were they seriously discussing what they were going to order for him?

"Get him a pornstar!" Cloud suddenly suggested.

Sora's jaw dropped, he didn't know what that was but it didn't sound like a good idea. Leon scowled at the notion.

"You want that hun?" The waitress asked, looking at Sora again.

"No... just get me a beer." Sora said suddenly. He didn't want anything girly.

"House tap?" She questioned.

"Yeah sure."

Sora felt relieved of so much pressure when she disappeared after taking Cloud and Leons orders.

As soon as she was out of earshot Cloud and Leon started laughing at Sora's little panic attack.

"We didn't expect you to freeze up like that Sora." Cloud said laughing.

"Don't laugh at me... I'm just not used to places like this. How am I supposed to know what they've got."

"It's called a drink menu." Leon said handing over the leather bound menu to the short brunette.

"Well you were hogging it before." Sora pouted.

Sora was flipping threw the menu when the waitress returned with their drinks. Water for Leon. All of the drinks in the menu had a list explaining what exactly were in them. Most of them looked long and complicated.

"Do you need anything else?" The girl asked before Leon dismissed her.

Sora took a sip of the beer she had set in front of him, grimacing at the taste. He may not have had much experience drinking, but he knew this was awful. He had stolen a sip of his uncles beer last time he had been out to the island with Roxas. That hadn't been nearly as awful as this in front of him now.

Cloud started laughing. "Shouldn't have ordered the house tap."

"Well why didn't you warn me?" Sora asked taking another sip and pulling another face.

"Gaston keeps that shit on hand for the people who don't know any better. It's the cheapest you can get I think, and it's watered down. Should have got that pornstar."

"You still should have warned me." Sora repeated, ignoring the fact that Cloud was dancing around the question.

"I'll give you fifty bucks if you can finish the whole glass." Cloud dared.

Leon rolled his eyes. "Lets just order him something better."

Cloud didn't answer, instead he dug a fifty out of his wallet and set it on the table. Raising an eyebrow to challenge Sora again.

Sora looked back and forth between the munny sitting on the table and the glass in front of him. This could quite possibly be a very easy fifty bucks. He took up the challenge, bringing the glass to his lips and doing his best to ignore the taste in his mouth as he slowly, surely drained the glass. Once he reached the bottom, he placed the glass back on the table and made yet another face.

"I'm impressed." Leon said from his spot across the table.

Cloud broke out into laughter, handing over the munny. "Well you earned it."

"Just let us know if you feel like you're going to be sick." Leon said with caution.

"Why you think I'm going to?" Sora still had that awful taste in his mouth, but he certainly didn't feel ill.

"I think I might after drinking all of that garbage." He said pointing to Soras empty glass.

"Yeah I don't think I'm going to get another one of those."

"Would you slow down Cloud." Leon chided.

Cloud was chugging down his drink about as fast as Sora had. He didn't bother responding to Leon until he had finished his glass.

"What did you do that for?" Leon asked.

"Can't let Sora have the lead." He answered.

Leon rolled his eyes. "Is everything a competition with you?"

"Whatever. You want another beer Sora?" Cloud asked as he scooted out of the booth.

"No, just get me whatever you're having." He figured that was the safest bet. Then he wouldn't be stuck with a glass full of nasty again.

"What you don't want another serving of shit in a glass?" Cloud said laughing as he crossed the room to the bar.

Leon leaned across the table to speak with Sora. "Don't try to compete with Cloud." He warned. "Not that I'm doubting you, but I'm not so sure if you could keep up to Cloud drink for drink."

Sora nodded, agreeing with what Leon had to say completely. "Don't worry he can win if it's that important to him."

"Good. Apparently I'm the one looking out for your well being tonight."

Sora laughed. "You have such little faith in him."

"You'll see. He likes to have a good time."

Cloud came back holding two glasses, identical Sora noted happily. "I got you a rum and cola." Cloud informed.

Sora nodded saying his thanks as he took the glass from the blonde. He looked at it briefly before trying a sip. It looked like plain pop. It burned going down though.

Sora was happy that Leon had come along, even though he was starting to feel more comfortable around Cloud again. He liked that he was able to learn more about the man as they talked whenever Cloud would start to yell insults across the pub to Gaston. As much as he had been dreading this birthday, he was glad he had agreed to Clouds plan. He was having fun. Even if all they did was swap stories and watch Cloud slowly become tipsy. Sora had taken to nursing his drinks, he had noticed Cloud had the habit of ordering him another drink as soon as his glass was empty. He had also noticed the interaction between Cloud and Gaston, who he had learned from Leon was the owner of Fiji's. It had started as mild teasing whenever Gaston was in ear shot, and it being returned likewise. Though with every drink Cloud had the teasing would become harsher and more and more peppered with colourful curses. None of the other patrons seemed to care. It was a dull roar inside the crowded pub anyway.

Finally Gaston seemed to have reached his breaking point. He approached their table. "Alright lets see you back up your threat."

Previously Cloud had been boasting how no matter what the competition, he would win.

"All right fucker, how about the usual."

Leon rolled his eyes. "Want to play some pool Sora?" He offered.

"Um..." Sora looked back and forth between Cloud and the French bar owner. "Are you sure?"

"Yes trust me you'd rather play some pool. Move Cloud so the kid can get out." Leon instructed.

Reluctantly Cloud moved from his seat in the booth so that Sora could slide out from beside him. He sat down again and Gaston sat across. They both threw their hands up onto the table, not seeming to care that they spilled Leons water.

"What are they-" Sora started, but trailed off when it was obvious they were arm wrestling.

"This is normal. Gaston will win." Leon predicted.

"You sound sure of yourself." Sora pointed out as he followed Leon to an empty billiards table.

"If Clouds completely sober he'd win, but after a few Gaston wins. It's always the same so I don't know why they keep bothering." Leon explained. He fished a quarter out of his pants pockets and pulled the balls onto the table.

"I'm not very good." Sora pointed out, when Leon handed him a cue.

"So I'll break then."

Sora stood back and watched as Leon did just that. It was obvious he had lots more practise at this game then Sora did.

"Looks like I've got stripes." Leon informed as they officially started the game.

As they played, Sora paid attention to the game at hand, as well as the one happening at their table. He had lost count how many rounds Cloud and Gaston had gone, but he had seen Cloud win a couple, and loose a couple as well.

"How long will they keep doing that?" Sora asked as Leon lined up another shot.

Leon shrugged. "Usually they keep going until one of them gets frustrated and calls it quits. That's usually the looser."

"And they do this all the time?"

"Usually, sometimes they play pool, or they shoot darts, once they played quarters." Leon explained.

Sora stepped up to the table, examining which would be the easiest shot to take. He spotted a solid ball close to one of of the corner pockets and determined that would be his victim. "Darts sounds dangerous." He said looking up at the other brunette.

Leon was scowling across the pub.

"Something wrong?" Sora asked.

"No just people watching us play." He said looking back to Sora. "Come on take your shot."

"Right, right." Sora said, turning his attention back to the ball he was determined to sink.

He lined the cue up to the cue ball, gave a small prayer before he drew back to strike the ball. Leon was beating him horribly, so much for going easy on the birthday boy. Though Sora was never very good at this game in the first place. He hit the cue ball, stood frozen in his spot while he watched the ball travel across the table and hit the yellow ball in the corner. It was only a light tap but it was enough to send the ball into the pocket.

"Yes!" Sora celebrated, throwing his arms into the air excitedly. "That's one more for me!"

Though Leon didn't seem very exuberant about Sora small victory. He was glaring across the room again.

"I'll be right back Sora. Take your time picking your next shot." Leon said, leaving Sora alone.

Sora didn't bother to see where he was going. Honestly he didn't mind if people wanted to watch them play. Instead he did exactly as Leon had instructed and started to eye up the table for his next shot. He figured Leon would be back soon enough. Though once he had found his next shot, slightly more difficult then his last, Leon still hadn't returned. He looked up to see where he had gone too. He was spotted easily, he was talking to someone sitting in a nearly empty booth, a very familiar looking figure.

"Riku?" He questioned out loud, knowing that he wasn't loud enough to be heard across the pub like that.

Riku seemed to have noticed that Sora had spotted him however. He stood and ignored a rather peeved looking Leon, quickly approaching Sora.

"Um.... Happy Birthday Sora." He said, sounding entirely unsure if he should be doing this.

"You remembered?" Sora had assumed Riku and Kairi had forgotten completely.

"Well yeah... I didn't think I'd see you out. Wakka and Tidus are still at camp right? They did go this year right?"

Sora nodded, Riku was acting strangely. Not like his new self, but not like his old self either.

"Kay mentioned he saw you at the beach earlier today." Riku informed.

Sora furrowed his brows, he would rather not be reminded of that now. "Yeah he did."

Leon came to stand next to Sora. "You know this kid?" He questioned.

"Oh yeah, we go way back." He said to assure Leon, so it had been Riku staring then.

"So... you came here with this guy?" Riku asked, making small talk.

"Yeah, Leon and Cloud."

"Wow, that's... cool."

They lapsed into an uncomfortable silence, Sora rubbed his arm unsure of what he should do. It was broken shortly after by a bang and a loud curse, Sora guessed it was in french it had made no sense to him.

They all turned to see the source of the commotion. Gaston was holding his chin and was clearly yelling at Cloud in french. Cloud looked smug.

"Come on Sora lets go defuse the situation before Cloud gets us thrown out." Leon said, putting a hand on Soras shoulder.

Sora agreed it didn't seem very wise to just ignore the situation, when it was obvious that Cloud had just punched the pubs proprietor. He gave Riku an awkward, almost dismissive wave. He would much rather be around Cloud now, then Riku. Particularly since Sora was back to feeling comfortable around the blonde.

"What the hell did you do this time Cloud?" Leon asked, helping Gaston out of the booth.

"What the hell does it look like?" Cloud retorted.

"Sorry Gaston." Leon apologized. "You know how he gets."

"I ought to throw all of you out." Gaston warned as he left, grumbling and rubbing his chin.

"He was cheating." Cloud informed.

"You know one of these days he's never going to welcome us back." Leon argued.

"Yeah right he enjoys it just as much as we do. Let him go throw his little conniption fit."

"I'm cutting you off." Leon informed.

"Has he really had that much to drink?" Sora asked, Cloud had been acting a little silly, but it was nothing like the drunks he had seen.

"No but we've got to set a good example." Leon informed, ignoring Clouds protests.

"Fine, why don't we just get going then?" Cloud said, sulking just a bit.

"What do you think Sora?" Leon asked.

Sora shrugged. "That's okay I guess, it's starting to get late anyway."

Cloud gave in without much protest and went and paid their tab at the bar. Leon and Cloud insisted on paying for everything, refused any of the munny Sora turned their way. Claiming that he wasn't allowed to pay because it was his birthday. Sora spotted Riku and Kay sitting at a table on their way out. He missed the wave Riku gave him.

Leon drove them home. Cloud walked Sora to his door, smelling faintly of the drinks he had consumed.

"So did you have fun?" Cloud asked, stopping Sora's hand from reaching the lock on the door.

"Yeah, much better then sitting around at home by myself."

"Great, we should do this more often then." Cloud informed.

Sora laughed. "Sure I guess why not."

"Good." Cloud shuffled almost nervously from one foot to another. "Good night then."

Then Cloud did something Sora had not been expecting. He leaned down and pressed his lips to Sora's. It was quick, chaste, and over almost before Sora realized what had happened. Part of him registered that he could taste the sugar from the cola in Clouds drinks.

"See you at work." Cloud said quickly, leaving before Sora could react.

Sora stood on the doorstep watching, Leons little compact car drive off. He couldn't see either man inside the dark interior before it turned the corner and disappeared from sight. He raised one hand to his lips, tracing the shape with his fingers. He was surprised to find he was smiling.  


* * *

Author Notes: All right so that was a beast to get to work. I'm sorry the beginning was so awkward. It worked out better near the end right? Sora's books habits are entirely my own. The story about the glass major is true, I met a guy with a masters degree in glass blowing in college.

All right so I need everyone opinion. Anyone who's read the original story I need to know if you want the side story with Riku included. I'd probably just make it one part rather then two again, but give me your opinions on this. It would help greatly.

As always drop me a line or two in a review let me know what you thought of the chapter, also leave your opinion on the side story/omake thing. Thanks everyone!!


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